Mark Steyn puts it together once again, precisely identifying the real motive behind ObamaCare and the Democrats’ willingness to commit electoral suicide: control and the eternal perpetuation of the Progressive Administrative State begun under Woodrow Wilson.
I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative”). The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.
Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic. Less than three months ago, they were stunned at the way the Democrats managed to get 60 senators to vote for the health bill. Then Scott Brown took them back down to 59, and Republicans were again stunned to find the Dems talking about ramming this thing into law through the parliamentary device of “reconciliation.” And, when polls showed an ever larger number of Americans ever more opposed to Obamacare (by margins approaching three-to-one), Republicans were further stunned to discover that, in order to advance “reconciliation,” Democratic reconsiglieres had apparently been offering (illegally) various cozy Big Government sinecures to swing-state congressmen in order to induce them to climb into the cockpit for the kamikaze raid to push the bill through. The Democrats understand that politics is not just about Tuesday evenings every other November, but about everything else, too.
When it comes to building the administrative state, Democrats are deliberate and Republicans are gullible. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch on Friday wasn’t – in my opinion – sufficiently ruthless and Machiavellian. And if you want to beat the Left, you can never leave your game face at home.
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Every time I hear some left wing loon compare mandatory health insurance to mandatory auto insurance, I scratch my head. You aren’t required to buy auto insurance if you don’t own a car, you goof. Why do these supposedly intelligent morons keep pursuing such an idea when it is a lead pipe cinch the Supreme Court will strike it down. The only answer I can come up with is that Obama made a hollow promise to those who want to share your wealth and he needs to blame someone other than himself for his failure. The Supreme Court will do.
When are we going to hear some serious talk from anyone in politics about denying health care to illegal aliens no matter their origin and discontinuing the practice of allowing a pregnant woman to jump the border to legalize another illegal. Our policy concerning illegal immigration is insane and the illegals are taking advantage of our stupidity.
Please see http://www.political-bull.com/ for more…