In December 1776, the American revolutionary War for Independence was over, and the colonies had lost. Almost before the ink had dried on the Declaration of Independence of July 4 that year, the British general William Howe attacked New York, driving George Washington and the Continental Army into humiliating retreat. General Howe then pressed his advantage relentlessly through the fall. By December, it was all but finished. As the freezing temperatures and snow arrived, the confident British army demobilized for winter camp.
Further resistance by the rebels may have seemed pointless. Many Americans at that time may have thought that governance by a distant king was so prevalent on all other continents that there was no hope for independence from England.
But then the damndest thing happened: Washington didn’t close shop for the winter like a gentleman, but on December 26 boldly launched a surprise attack on the British and Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, New Jersey, killing 21, wounding 90 and capturing 900, at a cost of four American wounded and not a single dead. The Revolution was not over after all. The United States of America might yet be more than a footnote to a forgotten rebellion.
Many Americans believe that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known variously as the P.P.A.C.A., the A.C.A. or Obamacare, is a done deal and something we just have to accept and learn to live with. Congress passed the law, the Supreme Court upheld it and Obama was re-elected along with a Democratic majority in the Senate. But a massively ambitious piece of legislation, based on mistaken premises, which can never fulfill its advertised promises and which is the crowning threat to the American constitutional civilization and economy since the American Revolution, cannot be surrendered to. The fact is, a growing majority of American citizens and legislators are already opposed to it. And as more and more supporters of Obamacare discover that they are personally among the millions whose access to affordable health care is being made worse by it, disenchantment will continue to grow.
My new pamphlet, Pull the Plug on Obamacare, is all about why we cannot concede defeat, why Obamacare must be rolled back, and what to replace it with. Whether you are a patient, a doctor, a legislator, a committed activist or just a middle-of-the-road guy or gal who can’t understand what all the fuss is about, this plain-spoken, slightly irreverent citizen pamphlet will give you the intellectual ammunition necessary to understand America’s predicament, defend your rights, and discuss solutions with your neighbors and your representatives.
We owe it to those Christmas 1776 patriots who gave us the incomparable gift that is the United States of America, and to future generations, who will read in the history books about us, our wisdom or our folly, our courage or our cowardice, as they either enjoy the estate we bequeath them, or struggle to pay the debts we put on their credit card.
Howard Hyde is author of the pamphlet ‘Pull the Plug on Obamacare’, available at Amazon.com, from which this article is excerpted. He writes a blog on free-market economics at www.HHCapitalism.com.
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