Thursday, March 25, 2010

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.

8 comments:

fairplaybeach said...

I didn't think I would be commenting here or taking it a step farther but they are commenting about it in a "Y". Y's don't pay taxes. On top of that in my business dealings with the local Y's, although they are nice, they are often inept. When I was renting from the Jorgie Y the big controversy going on was that they (and the Dupont Y) were refusing to share profits with the Downtown Y , Old Fort Y and the SE Y. lol

People are still piecing it all together. I haven't read enough up enough to my satisfaction but I'll side with the description "populist libertarians" as described in "Obamanomics" until I know more.

fairplaybeach said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Some people are just realizing that the democrats are in control. Others are just realizing that this means a democrat-type agenda. The rest who've actually been paying attention?

If they acknowledge that the republicans are just as bad as the democrats, they would have to actually examine their own beliefs instead of regurgitating the neatly-polarized categories that MSM and the public schools feed them. They might have to read a history book or two. They might miss American Idol.

It's much easier - and less time consuming - to scream about the democrats.

Mimi said...

Another strong, straight-to-the-heart-of-it post, Jim. This "reform" (aagh!) strikes me as dreadful, especially in that it forces citizens to give money to the corporate powers that kicked them in the gut in the first place. Little does the "thinking housewife" realize that this is actually a triumph for the right. It effectively kills the single payer/Medicare for all option for years to come. But as for socialism: Does the "thinking housewife" believe that police and fire departments are evidence of socialism? Public schools? The vast, blood-red military we seem to so mindlessly revere?
I guess she believes those things are different.

Dauvit Balfour said...

Grrr, argh...

This is exactly what has been on my mind. The same thing happened when Obama was elected (Oh no, he's not pro-abortion, never mind that Bush was only moderately more pro-life, and McCain only nominally so). The same thing happened when the bailouts were passed (Oh no, socialism, Obama's a socialist, never mind that he was just continuing what Bush started).

Too many Catholics fall for the national "conservative" and "pro-life" rhetoric, not realizing that by and large what is proposed by national pro-life conservatives is either actively evil or devoid of active opposition to evil.

This bill, yeah, it bothers me, but so did the MCA, and the bailout, and the stimulus plan, and the wars, and the torture, and the Patriot ACT, and Waco, and... y'know what, when ask for a spanking, don't cry when it hurts.

Dauvit Balfour said...

Errr, "Oh no, he's pro-abortion..."

Mort Chien said...

Lately I've been thinking that most of the "west" has been under the judgment of God for at least a century. The form it takes varies: inept, venial, or downright evil politicians, global wars, regional wars, economic upheavals, people given over to their basest passions, a kind of "prosperity" that saps the soul of anything that makes life worth living.

I took my grandson the AF museum Saturday and came away rather depressed. Was all of this hardware in some measure necessary? If it was, it makes the Christian doctrine of total depravity the easiest doctrine to empirically prove. And if it was not - same conclusion.

Politics seems to be a kind of surrogate religion. I think I'll stick with the genuine article. "But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word." NASB

Thinking Mama said...

Mr. Thinking Mama and I paid huge self-employment taxes this past year, forced, as we were, to pay for other people's health care and retirement via Medicare and Social Security taxes. Despite the shock that we felt, and the scramble to dig into our own retirement nest egg in order to pay for the retirement of others, I couldn't help but wonder if we had it easy this year--after all, when Emperor O's magical-health-care-for-all plan takes effect, there's no telling how much the self-employed will be forced to pay. This is nothing less than forced distribution of other people's wealth. As usual, Jim, you're right on target: there's nothing new at all about this extraction of wealth from people who work hard. It's been going on for years. But it will get worse. Perhaps some kind of saturation point has been reached by the "right" or maybe they have just come up for air from the slimy sea they've been swimming in for decades. Regardless, the more supposedly progressive and enlightened "left" call anyone who suggests that this country is becoming or already is socialist a "moron," et al.