Living document

All right, it is a living document. 

The founders never thought it was perfect or immutable. It grew under John Marshall.

It grew under Jefferson, for gosh sakes. He knew a limited reading wouldn't support Louisiana Purchase. But it was his duty to take the deal.

Polk stretched war-making power. Utah conservatives wouldn't regret being in U.S., would they? would they?

Then Lincoln and the postwar amendments.

Kennedy

Ted Kennedy died yesterday. I worked on his campaign in '80. I thought then he spoke for the forgetten people.

But, as Amity Shlaes (?) pointed out, the real "forgotten man" is the person who works, pays taxes, supports the community. Kennedy too often forgot about him, or at least took him for granted.

Yeah, we are scared

All the stuff we've been writing about is from proposed legislation, the president's own words in the New York Times, commentary from liberals such as Nat Hentoff and Mickey Kaus, and a Washington Post editorial writer, with more support from mainstream pubs such as the Wall Street Journal.

No blogs, no pols (aside from one quote from Palin).

Who decides? And when?

From kausfiles:

A debate on long-term cost control and end-of-life care--especially an emotional and acrimonious debate--is a highly useful debate to have. But it's not a useful debate to have right now. Right now it is killing Obama's universal care plans. ... And it wasn't a debate we had to have right now. It's a debate Obama has brought on himself by framing health care as an attempt to "bend the curve" of long term costs decades from now. He could have just said "Here's how I would guarantee health security for everyone. And here's how we're going to pay for it for the next ten years."

Kaus is one of the most insightful writers around. But here it's backwards.

We should have the discussion about cost control and end-of-life care first. How can we design change the system if we don't know what it will cover?

That's like saying: "Let's not worry about our destination. Let's just plan everything else about the trip."

Decide the destination first. Then decide the trip.

And Obama does bring up a good point. Why do we pay so much on the last weeks, when that neither prolongs nor betters life?

Most people don't want to be tormented at the very end of their lives. But they don't want a bureaucrat to decide when that will be.

But until we decide that, we can't really reform the system.

Just because you're paranoid ...

Death panels? from IBD:

Death panels are already here it seems, just as they have been for some time in Britain and Canada. The concept behind deciding who lives and who dies and how finite resources should be allocated was described by key Obama health care adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

In his paper, "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," he expounds on what he calls "The Complete Lives System" for allocating treatments and resources.

"When the worse-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly," he says, "allocating to the better-off is often justifiable."

These are Dr. Emanuel's words, not Palin's. We're not making this up and neither is she. It is not hard to see this formula for rationing forcing children such as Trig and the elderly such as Barbara Morgan to take a number — a very high number.

White House for sale

Robert Reich on health care sellout:

But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

More scorn and contempt from Dems

Maybe Pelosi and Reid could start a new committee. Call it the ... oh, you know.