The End Of the World As We Know It

This past Monday morning, I arrived at the YMCA, as is my custom, at about 5:10 am for my weekday morning workout. The first person to whom I spoke was the lady at the desk who scanned the bar code on the tag on my gym bag: just the routine "good morning." The second was a guy in the men's locker room, and he was lividly angry. Had I seen the front page of the morning paper? I had not. Well, ObamaCare had passed, the man noted with several bitter obscenities, and the US had become a communist dictatorship. Our future was entirely without hope. Alrighty, then. The next person was a lady who spoke to me as I set up my bike in "spinning" class. She, too, was desolated by the sudden advent of socialism in America, although she wasn't cursing about it, at least. But she was decidedly unhappy, as the U.S. Constitution had been decisively trashed by Sunday night's congressional action.

And then yesterday, during my lunch break, I read this comment at the "Thinking Housewife" blog:

The comments in “How Socialism Affects Character” are too passive in formulation. Socialism is not something that happens via some mysterious natural process, like a hurricane or an earthquake. Evil people are doing this to us. “Socialism,” as such, is not changing our character; leftist politicians are quite deliberately trying to change human nature, partly because this serves their political interests, and partly because their beliefs are profoundly misguided.

With respect to Clark Coleman’s comment, leftists want the government to take over health care precisely because this will kill the unique spirit of America, and cause the people to look to government for solutions, and foster the European mindset. For our leftist overlords, these character changes are a positive and intended feature, not an unintended side-effect.

With respect to Lydia’s comment, again, the leftist politicians who have enacted this legislation actively want to reduce the American people to gossiping about triviality, to ignorance of their history, to blaming and envying others instead of taking action themselves.

With respect to Sheila’s comment, the leftists actively want to create an entitlement mentality (after all, they provide the entitlements in exchange for votes), and to reduce the number of people who are determined to make it on their own and are chary of government assistance and too proud to accept charity.

I am being somewhat redundant here because I think one cannot overstress the role of human agency. The Democrats – an utterly venal and evil group of people – wish to interpose the government – i.e. themselves – in every human transaction. They want to decide who gets what, regardless of the Constitution or the wishes of the American people. They could not have come as far as they have without changing human nature and conditioning people to accept it for decades. They can only “succeed” if they change human nature in enough voters that the entitled and the apathetic outnumber those who cherish freedom and individual initiative. I put “succeed” in quotes because their “success” will only mean temporary power for individual politicians. Over the long term, they will fail, because socialism has resulted in ruin, poverty, and large-scale slaughter everywhere it has been tried, and America will not escape this fate either.

Now, here's the thing. In a broad, general sense, and setting some overheated hyperbole aside, I agree with all of these people. The recently-enacted "health care reform" is indeed a terrible idea, and it is indeed unconstitutional. It will indeed increase the sway of the central government over all our lives, and it will indeed hasten the economic collapse of the US. What I don't get is what's unique about it, and why it is so intensely upsetting to what, for lack of a better term, I'll call "the right."

Has the FedGov not already set the current configuration of American "health care?" Where did the whole odd concept of health "insurance" come from, except WWII-era government controls on income (and the subsequent exemption of that form of compensation from taxation)? Where was the explosion of rage when Saint Dubya decided to create a federal benefit for prescription medicine?

I certainly agree with the above-cited commenter that the Democratic officeholders, at least, are a venal bunch, although "utterly evil" seems rather hyperbolic. What I don't get is how that distinguishes them from Republican officeholders. It's a good thing the news media traditionally identifies Our Glorious Leaders by their formal crime-family affiliations; if you judge by most of the words, and essentially all of the actions, of these corporate bagmen (and -women), you'd never tell the difference. Come to think of it, maybe it isn't a good thing that they are so identified; it only contributes to the massive public confusion. Which is probably the whole idea in the first place.

Let's take a wider look. Where was the outrage when the "Patriot" Acts were passed? (Oh, that's right, Dubya again.) Why weren't any of these people angry about the unconstitutional, criminal, fully-optional, and generally insane wars that we're now involved in? (Dubya ... hmmmm, I sense a theme here.)

Look, folks, you were so pathetically eager, not so long ago, to be Imperial subjects. Well, you got your wish. Now, please have the dignity to shut up and enjoy it.