Health Care Trojan Horse for Fascism
I have been warning you, its coming. When government pays the health care bills, they can then use that as an excuse to micro-regulate our every behavior. Because its no longer an individual choice, it affects public costs.
“Denmark finds every sort of way to increase our taxes,” said Alisa Clausen, a South Jutland resident. “Why should the government decide how much fat we eat? They also want to increase the tobacco price very significantly. In theory this is good — it makes unhealthy items expensive so that we do not consume as much or any and that way the health system doesn’t use a lot of money on patients who become sick from overuse of fat and tobacco. However, these taxes take on a big brother feeling. We should not be punished by taxes on items the government decides we should not use.”
As an aside, given that Scandinavians tend to have among the world's highest tolerances for taxes, when they get fed up, it must be getting bad.
Ted Rado:
Every new government program promises to solve some problem, real or imagined. The collective effect is that we will have every facet of our lives dictated by Big Brother, at our expense. Further, experience shows that most USG programs turn out to be expensive fiascos which create more problems than they solve.
At some point, everyone gives up and quits trying, as the USG will regulate your efforts to death. I gather that many feel that this is the major cause of our economic malaise. The USG's answer? MORE laws and regs are needed. How brilliant. Why didn't I think of that.
October 3, 2011, 3:42 pmme:
While the new US healthcare legislation is pretty much the worst case non-solution to a huge problem, the way governance works in the US right now hardly needs a trojan horse for fascism. That's been here for a while. No more due process, warrantless wiretapping and executions, unfettered prosecutorial abuse, a body of laws sufficiently complex to ensure that compliance is virtually impossible, etc. pp. Oh, and witchhunts fuelled by irrational fears. No need for healthcare as a transport vehicle.
October 3, 2011, 7:20 pmBe Free:
More government = less freedom. That's not paranoia that's the reality. When people think they know better than you and those people are in power then you've got a problem. Our First Lady/nutritionist Michelle Obama is an example. She has been pressuring restaurant chains to modify their menus. As if she knows best.
I opt out of every government program or initiative that I can. As for the Danes I sympathize with them, but they're clever people they can fix their problems quicker than we can fix ours.
October 4, 2011, 5:43 amGaunilo:
Robert Blake said it well, many years ago. I confess I did not understand it when I first read it longer ago than I like to think about.
"Prisons are made with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion."
October 4, 2011, 6:59 amgn:
Had some business meetings in Copenhagen a few years back. After lunch in the cafeteria all of the employees lined up and took 3 (not 2, not 4) pieces of fruit back to their desk and ate them over the course of the afternoon. They told me it was required by the government. Also said something about alcohol consumption limits mandated by the gov't.
I wondered then (and now) how it was enforced and what the penalties were.
October 4, 2011, 10:27 amcaseyboy:
I know that Libertarians are not normally warm to religious principles, but our Founding Fathers made many statements regarding the need to remain a moral and religious people.
"It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." Samuel Adams
“Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” John Adams
“It is impossible to rightly govern without God and Bible” George Washington
"Religion is the basis and foundation of government. We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." James Madison
I could go on and on, but you get the point. Getting back to Constitutional principles necessitates getting back to Biblical principles.
October 4, 2011, 1:04 pmErisGuy:
"brothels with bricks of religion"
O, yes. My favorite religions are the the ones with the 'holy whores.' Many of my New Age friends (in this case, especially the women) declared themselves pagans eager for the return of the holy whore. I know of few churches shut down by the government for instituting this type of worship, but it isn't widespread yet.
Could we add "capitalism with the gulags of socialism" and "freedom with jackboots of tyrants" to the quote?
"I know that Libertarians are not normally warm to religious principles"
Indeed. Libertarians' closest intellectual relatives are communists: the freedom of dissenters never matters when the law legislates morality.
October 5, 2011, 3:32 amAllen:
facism or not the single largest problem with this tax is that eating fatty foods does not cause bad health.
October 5, 2011, 6:13 pmSteve:
Yep, seems 'bout right. The big gubernut will pay for every liddle boo boo that you have. But, you never see the stealthy hand of control coming into your everyday life.
Let's think outside of the box here. What will you folks say when the government starts to dictate who has children?
I mean the government is telling you right now that you can't smoke, eat fats, eat salty things....what makes you think they will stop there?
When the government is paying poor people's rent, grocery bill, child care, etc....when will the government start to say "you can't have any more kids, we (the government) can't afford it anymore".
Think about that one when you much your Wheaties this morning.
Steve
October 6, 2011, 5:43 amcaseyboy:
Steve, we almost got there once, although it wasn't directed at the poor per se, but at the less intelligent. It was called Eugenics and forced sterilization was happening right here in the good old USA.
In a SCOTUS case, Buck V. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr wrote in his opinion, "We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes." He concluded his argument by stating, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." The Nazi's got their best stuff from our Eugenics crowd.
Replace the laws of God with the laws of man and here is what you get.
October 6, 2011, 8:17 am