Well, it’s time to school the left once again on what is in the Constitution. If only our public schools would actually TEACH, correctly, what is in it… Why is this, you ask? Well, apparently one of our illustrious Representatives, you know, the ones elected under that self-same Constitution, appear to have no idea what is in it! Shocking, I know.
Rep. Sheila Jackson, a Democrat from Texas, can’t seem to keep her documents or history straight! On the House floor Monday night she theorized that health care and education are Constitutional rights. “I think that what should be continuously emphasized is the president’s leadership on one single point: that although health care was not listed per se in the Constitution, it should be a constitutional right,” Jackson Lee said. “One might argue that education and health care fall into those provisions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said.
Seems she was taking a page from Nancy Pelosi’s “intelligence” on matters of Constitutionality when she said in March of last year that “Obamacare” was necessary for “a healthier life, the liberty to pursue happiness, free of the constraints that lack of health care might provide to a family.” Ladies, it’s not there, and I highly doubt that you can get the requisite votes and support to Amend that illustrious document to include it.
Let’s give Ms. Lee a history lesson, shall we? First, the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” isn’t in the Constitution … anywhere. The Preamble to the Constitution states:
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.
The subsequent Articles deal with each branch of government: Article I. deals with Congress, Article II, with the Executive and Article III the Judiciary. Sets all the rules and responsibilities of each.
The next few Articles deal with Full Faith and Credit, Treason, admitting new States, amending the document and ratifying it.
Then comes the Bill of Rights. Read them, nothing about health care or education. Of course there’s nothing in there about privacy or abortion either, but that didn’t stop the Supreme Court from inventing it.
What it does have is a list of rights that belong to “We the People”: Generally, rights to worship without governmental interference, rights to speak freely in words or in the press, rights to assemble peacefully and go to government with complaints and be heard, rights to keep and bear arms, rights in criminal matters and so forth. All together there are 27 Amendments, and citizens should be aware of each and every one of them. If anything, they are a fascinating look into our history as a nation.
Now that “life liberty” thing does appear in our historical documents. Specifically in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
