During the healthcare debates in 2009, one of the main criticisms of the bill on booths sides of the aisle was over privacy concerns. With a national database of health records, what would keep the government from digging around in your personal life? Despite the government's reassurance that "the government is not going to do that," the more power the federal government obtains, the less true that seems to be.
Glenn has spoken out against electronic medical records since this debate started, but unless your wealthy enough to pay cash there's no avoiding them. That's how health insurance claims are filed. And now, one of the new executive orders on gun control, may make his case.
"There's a fix in the new healthcare law now coming through one of the executive orders," Glenn said. "One of the new executive orders on gun control is, 'the government needs to know if you have a gun. And the government wants you to know that if you have a gun, and there is anyone with any kind of psychiatric issue going on, you must get rid of the gun. You must turn it in."
"Now let's think about this," he continued. "First of all, how do we describe that? That means anybody with any kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome has to get rid of the gun. Anybody who was in the military who has any kid of paperwork like that, you have to get rid of your gun. Let's say there was a woman who was being stalked or she was raped. Are you telling me she didn't go to a psychiatrist and wasn't treated for that? Of course she was. If she has a gun, she has to turn it in now. If you move in an aunt who has Alzheimer's, you have to get rid of the gun. If you have a teenager that is depressed, and you treat them with a psychiatrist, you have to get ride of your guns. And if you don't, it is going to be a felony."
To be clear, these are necessarily the final parameters of any legislation or executive orders that will be passed. This was the word coming out on one, possibly two, of the executive orders being considered as of this morning.
Glenn went on to explain what the ramifications of a law this broad could be. If a kid or a teenager had a rough time in high school and went to the doctor because they were depressed, that family could instantly lose their right to own a firearm.
"Everybody in life goes through depression. This is the most overmedicated society in the history of the world," Glenn noted. "How many people are on Prozac? How many people are on those drugs?"
When do you get those guns back? Do you get them back? More importantly, what about the Hippocratic Oath? The law the legally protected you, the patient, and your privacy.
There is no right to privacy under the Hippocratic Oath under an executive order that requires physicians to report patients with mental health issues.
"How many people will stop telling their doctors things that are important?" Glenn asked.
Anyone who has ever had private health insurance under an individual plan will understand the implications of this. Essentially this would allow the government to do is label any and all mental health issues, from any point in your life, a "pre-existing condition" for gun ownership. If you've ever tried to change health insurance after a serious illness or injury on an individual health plan, you know how impossible it is. Even if it's an illness that could never return, you can become virtually uninsurable because you are grouped into a 'high risk' column.
"How many people will have real psychiatric issues and not report them? And when it comes to depression, if you don't catch it early, you'll keep sliding into the abyss, and that's when it becomes dangerous," Glenn said.
Most individuals suffering from mental illness already have a hard time talking about issues like depression. Now, they have to deal with the fear of punishing everyone under their roof and a doctor being "required" to turn them in.
This executive order would group anyone with a history of depression, anxiety, mood disorders, PTDS, etc, into the "mentally ill" column. So if you or anyone in your house is in that group, your 2nd Amendment rights have become extremely limited at best.
The biggest problem with these kind of laws is that everything is viewed by the collective. An individual look isn't taken at each patient, much less each illness. And, as Glenn points out, can be a slippery slope that leads to dehumanizing these individuals all together.
"The ramifications of what we are doing and what we're talking about…and no one will actually talk about the moral issues behind all of this. We're talking about these things that are life changing, culture changing, things that are profound in their repercussions," Glenn told listeners.
Euthanasia is occurring more and more frequently in industrialized countries around the world — the value of life seems to be on the decline in the eyes of European countries. Glenn gave the example of a set of 41-year-old twins in Belgium that were Euthanized recently. They weren't terminally ill, they weren't in chronic pain, they were just deaf and had glaucoma.
"They didn't want to be deaf and blind, so the state killed them. State-assisted suicide," Glenn said.
"They [Belgium] euthanized 1033 people in 2011," Pat noted. "They're euthanizing a lot of people."
It's a trend that's on the rise, Glenn explained, because the excuses are on the rise.
"They didn't want to live like that. They didn't want to be that way. It's costing too much. We're going to lose our guns. We're going to lose our rights. We're going to lose this, we're going to lose that," Glenn listed off. "It will happen. But remember, the President will tell you these are common sense things."