Week of 08/03/1998

Clinton’s Bill Of Rights?
- by David Matthews 2

There are three words that President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore have been throwing about of late. Three little words that should make every American’s stomach churn when you realize who is speaking them.

Those words? "Bill Of Rights."

Talk about health care, Hillary Clinton’s pet peeve, and you hear Bill ramble on and on about needing a "Patient’s Bill Of Rights." Talk about electronic privacy, Al Gore’s pet peeve, and you hear Gore ramble on and on about needing an "Electronic Bill Of Rights."

Crisp, clean, patriotic words that sound great for the media clips. They stir feelings of freedom. They make you feel you want these things. They make you feel you deserve these things.

There’s just one problem - the Clinton Administration can’t take care of the original Bill Of Rights!

Anyone remember those original Bill Of Rights? The first ten amendments to the US Constitution? The very document that Clinton and Gore both took an oath to protect and defend?

While Camp Clinton has been playing up to the cameras and making sound bites with the media about freedom and rights, they’ve been systematically destroying those rights with policies and laws. Many of which were done under the public’s noses, but spun so cleverly that Joe and Jane Six-pack would never even notice that they’ve lost their rights.

What’s worse is that the only "opposition" to Camp Clinton, the Republicans, have not only contributed to the destruction of the Bill of Rights, but those Republicans in Congress have also taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Thanks to President Bubba and the Gods of Mount Morality, we now have a bastardized version of the Bill of Rights. We have free speech, but only for ideas approved by Congress. We have free press, but only to report what is approved by the Clinton Administration. We have the freedom of religion, but only what is approved by the Christian Coalition. We have the right to bear arms, as long as we’re talking about arms raised in surrender. We have the right from unreasonable search and seizure, unless it involves drugs or children.

That’s not saying there aren’t serious issues that need to be addressed in terms of patients care and electronic commerce. Bureaucrats in the heath care industry need to be held accountable when their definition of bureaucratic expediency leads to patients dying. That’s not a right, that’s common sense. And likewise, the information brokers are learning the hard way that all the information they’re gathering is about as toxic as Chernobyl soil. Consumers ARE fighting back, and it doesn’t take an act of Congress to do it!

But I am sick and tired of hearing Clinton and Gore talk about needing a new "Bill of Rights" to address these issues. Having these two politicians talk about a "Bill Of Rights" is like having Elizabeth Taylor presiding over a meeting of the Promise Keepers. When they start really taking care of the "Bill Of Rights" that they have sworn under oath to protect and defend, perhaps then we could give them credence to talk about other "Bills" when they are needed. Until that time, it is simply just another deplorable instance of politicians bastardizing the very things America was founded upon.