Roger Ebert:

My mistake was writing from the pragmatic side. I should have followed my heart and gone with a more emotional approach. I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.
It is a moral imperative. I cannot enjoy health coverage and turn to my neighbor and tell him he doesn't deserve it. A nation is a mutual undertaking. In a democracy, we set out together to do what we believe is good for the commonwealth. That means voluntarily subjecting ourselves to the rule of law, taxation, military service, the guaranteeing of rights to minorities, and so on. That is a cheap price to pay.

Someone who acknowledges the benefits he's received from the concepts of "the common good" as well as his own earning ability and the beneficent effects of his union membership says that universal healthcare is a moral issue. I agree.

Apparently the Bible quote Roger Ebert used (Matthew 25:31-46) is one that only liberals really take to heart.

Again Ebert refutes the notion of "Death Panels" as a lie.

Federal Death panels would decide who lives or dies. This, very frankly, is a lie. The nearest thing we have to a death panel in the United States is an insurance company claims adjuster. Some readers wrote that they or their loved ones were denied tests or treatment by their insurance companies, especially in the case of "pre-existing conditions." One, who had a brain tumor, says he was denied coverage of the treatment by an adjuster, as if he'd known about the tumor at the time he took out his policy some time earlier. Think about this. Unless we die violently or in an accident, we all die of a pre-existing condition. The condition is called "life."

I'm with Ebert here. I am a liberal. I am not ashamed of that.

I will advocate for this: as the First Amendment says, we need no state church -- Christian or other, evangelical or not. The business of the State must be separate from the matters of the Church, lest the conflation bring ruin to both -- but that means, for each and every one of us living in the US regardless of legal status, that the State has no right to demand we choose a church, follow a church, participate in a church.

What the State has, at the Federal level, is an OBLIGATION to protect us all, regardless of what, if any, church we choose -- or worship we practice. It's discussed in 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 unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It's codified in the Constitution.

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.

We have had eight years of a steady diet of fear. We have had eight years of intrusion upon our liberties by a particular sect of Christianity. We have had eight years of evangelism fueled with delusion, eight years of spreading dissent, eight years of warmongering, eight years of worshiping profit -- the Prosperity Gospel gone wild. Let us not forget how near ruination that brought our nation.

Let us speak instead of truth and justice, of equality and brotherhood, of a safety net. One voice responding to Ebert puts it thusly:

By Peter on August 21, 2009 1:20 AM

"Some might believe universal health care would be of great assistance in enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness."

I'd say that universal health care is of central importance for liberty as well. How free, as in literally autonomous, are you really to be what you want to be if you're physically and mentally crippled or financially ruined by illness? Universal health care done right is a way to help maximize autonomy for a maximum number of individuals in a society -- to ensure that their right to liberty can be excercised in practice, not just enjoyed in theory.

Any libertarian who honestly cared about everyone's right to liberty, not just their own right to private ownership, should be for universal health care.

Is there a Correntian who has, so far in life, not met the health insurance demon headfirst? Is there one of us whose existence bears no scar from denied care? Is there one of us who has not known the frustration of the insurers' demand that we exhaust "cheaper" alternatives first, or accept "generic" medications instead of the specific prescription the doctor wrote for us? Is there one of us who hasn't been afraid of the cost of going to the doctor?

Those fears, those scars, that restriction: the current health care "system" in the US is unconstitutional. We must not let it continue like a juggernaut, lest not just our people but our nation be brought to ruin.