California’s Newest Chronic Disease: “Preventionitis”

Another Day Has Arrived

John R. Graham, the director of Health Care Studies for the Pacific Research Institute recently wrote that "Politicians interpret [ ] exercises in crystal-ball gazing as proof that they can never impose too much government control over people for their own good."

Before we get to what they saw in the particular crystal ball Graham is talking about, we must understand several things: 1) crystal balls are the same, in this case, as what is meant by the phrase "counting your chickens before they hatch." Politicians look at scientific data, as we shall see, and being the modern politicians that they are believe they have the right to implement policy and law based on the data.

In fact, they do, and they should. To ignore science would be catastrophic in many cases, not to mention silly and ignorant. But where these modern politicians go wrong is: 2) believing that the Constitution is a "living" document that allows them to ignore the original intent of the powers given to the Federal government, and to ignore that some powers were strictly given to the States, with all the rest of the powers not enumerated given to the individuals, to "the people", not collectively, but individually, making each of us sovereign and able to stand against the un-Constitutional abuses of government.

How can we know that the powers not enumerated as belonging to the Federal or the State governments are "reserved" to individuals? We can know this, because "the people", when not considered at individuals, are either entities of their respective States with Constitutional powers enumerated to them; or entities of the Federal government, with Constitutional powers enumerated to them.

(There is a flaw in that fact, a flaw which became law with the "citizens of the United States" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The States were empowered to protect their citizens from the over-reaching powers of the Federal government; we were never meant to be "citizens of" the Federal government. That clause literally and forever--until it is overturned--eliminated the original nature of the States as individual political entities united under law, and instead created, for the first time in Constitutional history, a single entity called the "United States."

(Before the Fourteenth Amendment we were Citizens with a capital "C" both in written law, and in popular writing such as newspapers. "Citizens" in the Fourteenth is spelled with a lower case "c" and never since have we citizens been Citizens.

(We belong to the Federal Government, which can manipulate us as much as the liberal courts will allow it to go. And if a court strikes down federal legislation or the policy implemented by a bureau, such as Health and Human Services, for example, there is always another day. Don't forget that the income tax was originally declared un-Constitutional, until another day arrived.

("Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/search?q=citizens+of+the+United+States)

And so, by the powers reserved to the people, we know the Founding Fathers meant, by "the people", to mean the individuals who make up the non-political entity called "the people," which is nothing more than the concept of all individuals considered as a group, e.g., "the people at Fox News," or "the people in prison."

The power to "impose too much government control over people for their own good" was never an original intent of the Founders, who all believed that governments instituted among men ought to be limited.

Now, just what is it that John Graham is talking about, above?

"A major driver of health costs over the last couple of decades is chronic illness such as diabetes and heart disease. It's time to add another chronic ailment to the list: 'preventionitis,'" writes Graham.

"Because much chronic disease is associated with bad lifestyle choices, many succumb to the utopian delusion that investment in 'prevention' – eating better, exercising more, and so on – will cut society's health bill.

Exercise and a healthy diet are of course good ideas. The 'investment' that preventionistas advocate, however, is not a personal commitment to oneself, a family member, or a friend. On the contrary, it is massive government intervention to change society's habits, paid for by tax hikes." [emphasis added]

The science that the government of California is taking note of is a report funded by three non-profit groups: the Trust for America's Health, the California Endowment, and the Prevention Institute. "They conclude," Graham continues, "that investing 10 dollars per person annually in 'prevention' in California would result in savings 4.8 times greater than the costs, starting five years out.

Overall, they claim that annual savings would be $1.7 billion, measured in 2004 dollars. Statewide health spending in 2004 was $166 billion, so we are looking at annual savings of one percent. Ten years from now the annual savings would go up to $1.9 billion (2004 dollars), which would be much less than one percent of overall costs, because health costs will be much higher in 2014 than they were in 2004, even after adjusting for inflation.

"Even so, such estimates are fantastically over-precise. Politicians interpret these exercises in crystal-ball gazing as proof that they can never impose too much government control over people for their own good."

Over-estimating is not the Constitutional problem. Neither is the crystal-ball gazing, nor the science. The problem is the corruption of the Constitution.

Certainly, modern society has problems to take care of that the 18th Century could never have imagined, from the kind of road, water and sewer infrastructures we have, to the infrastructures created by the use of electricity and the internet, to name only a few.

But these problems are made worse by assuming that because the Founders could not foresee them, we must ignore their--our--written Constitutional responsibilities. We cannot just willy-nilly do as we please depending on the Congressional, Judicial, and Presidential powers who are in office at the time of the decision making.

The Constitution must be changed as directed within the Constitution itself. Without that guarantee, we might as well quit pretending we rely on the Original Constitution and just admit that we manipulate it like so much Play-Doh.

Modern Americans who are not educated in the history of the Constitution, which is done on purpose by educators who become more left-and-liberal decade by decade, are in pursuit of absolute control over everyone else's lifestyle choices.

And instead of standing up and saying, "I refuse to control anyone's life," we all lie down and understand that we must allow ourselves to be controlled in things we wish we were not controlled, if we are to have the power to contol others where they wish they were not controlled.

That is the insidious and degrading power of modern liberalism. It must stop.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

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Power Reserved to the People, Respectively

Eliminate Constitutional Clause and Give Power back to the People, Respectively

"The best way to limit the federal Leviathan is to have Congress and the presidency controlled by different parties," said Ilya Shapiro of the blog of the Cato Institute. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/10/24/a-plea-for-divided-government/

Wrong. That statement of Shapiro's demonstrates the similarities between the so-called conservatives and the out-and-out liberals.

The best way to limit the federal Leviathian is to stick to the origins of the Constitution. That is called "originalism," or sometimes "original intent". Wikipedia explains it this way:

"In the context of United States constitutional interpretation, originalism is a family of theories central to all of which is the proposition that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning, which was established at the time of its drafting."

This does not in any way prevent it from being applied to American law in any decade or any century. The original intent can--and ought--to be applied because that was the intent of those who wrote it. They provided us with the means to change their intentions, and that means was not to ignore their intentions. That means was not to place any meaning on their words that fit our purposes. That means was to either nullify by Amendment where necessary, or alter by legislation where allowed, the intention of their words.

The answer to the question of why we, in the 21st Century ought to follow the spirit of their words is because that spirit is the spirit of Americanism. We can keep the spirit but change the words that transfigure what they saw in the 18th C. into what we see in the 21st. To ignore their intent is "rule by men", not rule by law.

Original intent theory is interpretation of the Constitution consistent with what was meant by those who drafted and ratified it.

The original meaning theory, which is closely related to textualism, is the view that reasonable persons living at the time of its adoption would have declared the ordinary meaning of the text to be. It is with this view that most originalists, such as Justices Scalia and Thomas, are associated.

Just this year the Supreme Court proved that originalism could be used effectively, when it ruled on the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Court effectively nullified the first clause which made the Amendment appear to require a "well maintained militia" to enable the right to bear arms. The Court, after reviewing hundreds of documents from the Colonial period, decided that it was never the intention of the drafters and signers of the Constitution to limit arms to the maintanance of a militia.

By ruling in this way, the Court proved that originalism will sometimes benefit the America of the 21st Century. Had it declared that it was indeed the intent of the Colonialists to limit the right to bear arms to the militia, it still would have made the correct decision if the historical facts supported the decision. But at that point it would have been up to Congress to write a new amendment that would override the "militia clause" of the Second Amendment.

Originalism is the way the Constitution is supposed to work. If history does not support the facts of life as they exist today, as the Constitution was written, then it is within the right of the people to amend the Constitution.

Originalism, besides limiting the size and scope of the federal government, will return to the States that which is not "prohibited to" them, and which "are reserved to the States respectively"; which will subsequently return to We, the People, what is not prohibited to us and is reserved to each of us respectively. [Tenth Amendment]

What is reserved to each of us respectively is sovereignty of self, otherwise called individual sovereignty. Laissez-Fairre: the Economics of Individual Sovereignty

No one on the right or the left is going to convince me to believe that being a "citizen of the United States" is better than being a "Citizen of the Several States" of the united States. It is not better to be part of a government Leviathian than to be part of a semi-autonomous region.

This does not mean an Afghani or Iraqi style autonomous tribalism--it never did, and it will not--not so long as all the people of all the "several States" remembers that there are limits to what is achievable when home rule is brought closer to "home."

The "citizens of the United States" clause of the 14th Amendment should be struck down. That would eliminate most of the Federal power over the States. We were never intended to be citizens of the "United States". The Continental Congress did not set it up that way. They deliberately limited the size and scope of the Federal government. Since Senator John McCain wants to cut funding for all but what he or Congress or someone deems is "necessary," this is the route he should take.

Of course it would take a Libertarian who is strong as Ronald Reagan to do such a thing.

I don't think McCain is even a libertarian. But he should return as much power to the States as he can without mandating, as Reagan did, that the States pick up the Federal slack.

Picking up that slack is not downsizing--it is passing it off on the States.

Give the power back to the States, don't mandate anything except to follow the remaining and existing Federal statutes (or sue the Federal government over it, the legal way of resolving disputes,) and when we all see power returning to the People, we will not only be empowered again politically as we once were; but we will be empowered psychologically as we have not been since before the Civil War.

Note: originalintent.org is one of several organizations dedicated to "Restoring the Republic...One Citizen at a Time."

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/