http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/22353What Shall It Profit A Nation, To Gain The Whole World, And Lose Its Soul?
by Stephen Rose | June 17, 2009
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” -- Sound familiar? Both the President and members of Congress separately take oaths supporting the principles stated in this preamble to the Constitution. The President swears to “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution…” Congress swears to “support and defend the Constitution…against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
Why do so many believe that insuring domestic tranquility, defending America, and promoting the general welfare, doesn’t include insuring the entire population adequate protection from disease, injury and ill health? The population now exceeds 305 million, and the escalation of serious health problems represents a true threat to the welfare of both the people, and by extension, the nation. It’s as important to defend the nation from within, as it is to protect it from without. Denial of this is as archaic as it is ludicrous. And, how often is it simply a matter of profit before service?
Why are there so many uninsured and under-insured Americans? How was it ever acceptable that 40-45 million citizens have no healthcare insurance? Why is healthcare measured in terms of profit, rather than quality and complete coverage? Why is the United States of America the only major industrialized nation in the world without some system of universal health care? Why, Why, Why!?!
Is there not enough money? Well, considering all the wealth the leadership of our nation has spent on wars and war-making in the 20th Century, and at the beginning of the 21st, it’s hard to believe there isn’t enough money to comprehensively insure everyone’s medical health. And, considering how much money our government wastes on obvious pork and earmarks, those specifically having less to do with the general welfare than with pandering to small interest groups state by state, it’s incredible universal healthcare isn’t considered a national and state by state priority as well.
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My purpose here is basically to kindle awareness that protecting, defending and promoting the common welfare goes way beyond maintaining a strong military presence (speaking of spending money -- our military budget is higher than several of the largest nations combined). The strict constructionists who try to convince us the Constitution has nothing to do with insuring the medical health of the nation as part of its wellbeing, suffer from extremely myopic vision. A nation that fails from within will undoubtably, and eventually, fail in all respects. All the blather about liberal versus conservative, and the phony hype about socialism, is nonsense; it’s meant to distract and divide.
Rhetoric and lofty intellectual masturbation about the Constitution will not preserve the welfare of our country and people. What is required now is real common sense, and a change in the moral and ethical climate of a nation where the business and political ethic has morphed into the idea that it’s okay to screw others as long as there is an odds on chance you won’t get caught. To say that “the love of money is the root of all evil” is simply to remind us how easy it is to sell one’s soul, and very cheaply. It’s time to put people before profit – “Business! Mankind was my business!” Capitalism is fine until it is not, just at the point when profit trumps people, every time.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36 -- One does not have to be religious in order to understand the truth of this statement!
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