In regard to my opinion piece in the April 6 issue of The Miami Student, I received both positive and negative feedback.
In examining the negative feedback, it seems I must clarify the main point of that article, which is the infringement of "Obamacare" on the First Amendment and the importance of the separation of church and state.
People seem to overlook the separation of church and state also means keeping the state out of the church.
The controversy surrounding Sandra Fluke and the illusion of a "war on women" are distractions from this real issue.
The fact individuals are willing to abdicate their First and Tenth Amendment rights concerns me.
Also, whenever I mention the possibility of totalitarian acts, such as mass sterilization and eugenics, I am not doing so with the intention to incite paranoia, but to point out that such extreme acts blossom from smaller government encroachments on liberty.
When the government has free-reign to operate without any restrictions or controls, it has the potential to become a totalitarian government, and sterilization and eugenics taking place is not impossible.
It gives me little comfort to know the last forced sterilization in America occurred as recently as 1981.
America has a history on this issue; I encourage you to learn more about it.
Another critique of my opinion piece focused on my assertion that President Barack Obama and his administration can influence gas prices, which coincidently is what I had planned to focus on today.
I don't care under which president gas prices were higher, whether under President George W. Bush or under Obama.
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But I do care that nothing was done about it then and nothing is being done about it now.
I do not wish to discuss the typical issues.
I do, however, want to illustrate how the Obama administration's weak dollar policies contribute to increased gas prices.
Since oil is traded in dollars, whenever the dollar is weak oil costs more.
A good indicator of the dollar's strength is its relationship to the price of gold. When President Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, gold cost $853 an ounce, according to usagold.com.
On April 5, 2012, gold cost $1,631 an ounce, nearly double the 2009 cost.
To show the correlation, during the same time period, gas more than doubled from $1.90 to $4, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This trend continues today due to President Obama's increased spending.
When spending increases, our debt monetizes, more money is printed and the dollar buys less.
As a consequence, foreign oil producers demand more dollars for the same barrel of oil.
We must lower our spending and debt.
It is becoming unsustainable and our generation will be buried in it beyond repair.
The Obama administration has borrowed $5 trillion in less than four years.
If you are thinking about the statistics under previous presidents, you are missing the point, which is we need a president who will stop spending us into debt and economic decline.
A major portion of spending began with the stimulus package, which was ineffective because it wasn't given to entities that would magnify it.
The best type of stimulus would have been a tax break for businesses, which would have enabled them to hire more people and create more products and services, thus creating wealth.
Instead money was given to cronies like Solyndra for example, which went bankrupt, ate up all those tax dollars and left us with debt.
This debt will only get worse if "Obamacare" is upheld.
One of many deceptions by the Obama administration concerns "Obamacare's" cost.
President Obama claimed that in 10 years "Obamacare" would cost $900 billion by dishonestly calculating 10 years worth of taxes for six years worth of care.
The actual cost would be $1.7 trillion and possibly $2 trillion, nearly double his claim.
Not only would "Obamacare" catapult our debt beyond repair, but it has been dishonestly "sold" to the American public.
We need a healthcare strategy that utilizes free market principles.
We never had and do not have that under our current healthcare system.
Furthermore, we need the kind of presidential leadership that would strengthen the dollar by limiting our spending and debt, which would lower the cost of oil and put our generation on a path of prosperity.
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