Seeking Wholeness

If you have not read, and memorized, the Preamble to the United States Constitution you got to read it below. It’s just a short paragraph.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.

from: wikipedia.org

Many seem to interpret this paragraph differently. I can’t help but wonder what “promote the general Welfare” means and if it include the health of citizens.

I found this interpretation on wikipedia:

In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a “public use,” the court pointed to the Preamble’s reference to “promot[ing] the general Welfare” as evidence that “[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers.”^[19] “[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers as a part of our nation’s system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: ‘* * * promote the general Welfare.’“^[20]

18^ Ellis, 257 F. Supp. at 527.

19^ Id. at 574 (emphasis added).

20^ Kinnebrew Motor Co., 8 F. Supp. at 539 (”Reference has been made in the government’s brief to the ‘Welfare Clause‘ of the Constitution as if certain powers could be derived by Congress from said clause. It is not necessary to indulge in an extended argument on this question for the reason that there is no such thing as the ‘Welfare Clause‘ of the Constitution.”).

I have my own opinions, which you would know if you’ve been following my writings. I do agree with the interpretation posted above.

The constitution was written with the union in mind, with the ‘we the people’ in mind.  It did not say we the corporations, or we the banks, we the elite, we the white men, and certainly not we the king (president, vice president, or supreme leader).

I guess, corporations think of themselves as people nowadays. This was not what ‘we the people’ stood for however. Corporations are not people and the constitution was not written to protect their rights, rather it was written to protect people’s and the union’s rights.

“We the people”, can this phrase be stated any simpler? It is all about us, US citizens and living human beings, about our welfare, justice, domestic tranquility, general welfare, and liberty from forces (other than the WE) that want to control our lives (i.e. kings, church, corporations etc).

I can’t help but wonder what went wrong, when did we become a society of “me” and forget that we are a society of “we”, when did we forget that “we the people” come first and foremost?

I’d like to remind you that we = the government. The government is by us and for us and they stand accountable to us. At least that is the way things should be. If we can’t hold government accountable to us, what makes you think that we can trust private companies or corporations concerned with profit-making more? Corporations don’t answer to you or we, they exist to make money for their shareholders and answer to their boards and millionaire CEOs. The bottom line is that the government exists to protect us, the people, from internal and external dangers, why? because government is us!  Government accountability to the people is threatened right now because elected representatives get sorely needed $ from lobbyists; this issue can be fixed with a simple election financing reform, then and only then will elected officials be 100% accountable to people, and will have no one else to answer to and please but we the people.

I think, it is totally natural that we the people (i.e.  government) pool together, unite, and give ourselves a public option of health care. After all, it is about us, the people. It has always been about us. What’s wrong with that?

No one disagrees that all humans have the right to life, correct? I believe that my right to life is being threatened when I am left with unaffordable health care, when I get denied care, when my health insurance payments go up 20%, and when corporations tell doctors how to treat my illness and do their best to deny coverage.

We the people want our right to life (i.e. health care).

Do you agree / disagree? I want to hear what you have to say.

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