By Dr. Harold Pease

Near midnight March 21, now known as “Red Sunday” the House of Representatives voted to pass the Senate version of a national health care bill following many late night, behind closed-door deals made to buy or threaten holdouts and organizations amidst uncommon legislative trickery.  Shame had no limits.

I join the millions across the country disappointed—even angered—with our Imperial Congress, which has voted to clear the way for the end of freedom as we know it in healthcare—government takeover of 1/6 of the economy.  They have done so with full knowledge that this intrusion is not supported by the people and is not constitutional.

Following a year filled with tea parties and town hall meetings where Americans voiced their anger and distrust of this bill, Congress has continued to be flooded with emails, phone calls, letters, and faxes, as never before.  Millions of formerly silent and trusting Americans from both parties became vigilant activists as they saw liberty threatened and their voices simply ignored. Yet members of both houses marched forward, hell-bent to give us what recent surveys say a vast majority of Americans did not want.

The demand of the people was as clear as it possibly could be: We do not want socialism, more debt unfairly passed to our posterity, or laws that only lawyers can read and that are hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages in length!  (Sunday morning the Bill was approximately 2400 pages in length but by evening it was near 2700 pages.) There has not been such disregard for the people since the American Revolution when Parliament did similarly. If an Imperial Congress can do it on one measure opposed by the people, they can do it on any measure.  At least half of Congress no longer represents the people or defends the Constitution they vowed to honor.  Everyone in the House or Senate voting to take away our health care liberty should be removed from office at the earliest possible moment regardless of party.  Those running for Congress in 2010 should not be supported unless they pledge to repeal this legislation at the earliest possible moment.

The California State legislature immediately must join the 14 sister states bringing suit to the Federal Government for abuse of power on the basis of this most serious violation of the 10th Amendment.  Health care is not one of the enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 and thus is an individual or state prerogative at best, as noted in the much-ignored 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Nor can it be justified as an extension of the commerce clause as some ignorantly suppose.  We must take back our health care from the government that cannot even run the post office. If we do not persist in this fight, then our government will continue to hijack our economy and run it into the ground just like they have done with everything else they have power over.