LETTER: An erosion of U.S. principles

Our nation has a health care debate ongoing and both sides are passionate. With that, I fully understand the argument of those who support the president's goal. Families struggle with tough purchasing decisions each day and it's not fun to pay for health insurance or pay medical bills. As one letter-writer wrote recently, the high cost of health insurance can mean some children don't have private kindergarten or pre-K schooling, but if someone else pays the medical bills, then one can buy other things. But how is spreading the wealth by forcibly taking from one's neighbor different from enforced charity? And what happens when demand exceeds government wealth?

Whatever happened to self-reliance, taking care of your own? I thought America is the land of opportunity rather than a citizenry dependent on government benevolence? How is a growing dependence on a growing amount of government-provided services different from peasant serfs relying on a lord?

Our founding fathers did not found a nation of dependents, or a land of dependence. America was founded as a land of opportunity and freedom. The ideal was equal opportunity, opportunity for one to seek one's potential, not of a government directing its citizens to buy a product.

America's freedoms and our inherent rights date from our founding documents. Observe how different the world was before and after our Constitution was drafted in 1787? Beforehand, mankind's societal and technological progress, and freedom itself, were slow moving and limited.

After America's republican experiment began, freedom spread as did drastic improvements in the world's standard of living. All can be traced to America and the freedoms and guarantees this nation promised citizens, and the protection of one's property from government seizure. Now, a great erosion of those principals is at stake because some want a freebie that won't be cheap.

Me, I want the greatest of opportunity so that America and Americans can grow, not the dull stagnancy observable under Soviet communism. Remember Germany when it was split, a great and clear demonstration of the difference between maximum freedom and maximum government care.

LEO GRASSILLI

Woodbridge