"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John AdamsThis is the end of "Politics and Pigskins". I may start another blog in the future, but I am done discussing the subject of politics on a regular basis.
It seems to me the political battle I have been fighting was a losing battle from the start. John Adams was right.
Ironically, I think the battle was over even before I began it. The 17th Amendment of the Constitution (passed in 1913) sealed our fate, by turning the U.S. Senate into a directly elected legislative body. What seemed like an innocuous thing actually set in process the motion by which the United States will inevitably be destroyed. It changed the United States from a republic into a democracy.
The health care bill which was recently passed brought the subject home to me:
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it." - Frederic Bastiat
Bastiat was right, and the health care bill is only the latest example of it. Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to determine medical treatments? Where does the federal government get the right to determine how an insurance contract should be written?
Going back to previous examples of Medicare and Medicaid, where does the federal government get the right to determine how much a doctor can charge for his/her services?
The answer to these questions is simple: He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Once "We the People" decided money wasn't important, money was evil, that opened the floodgates to allowing the government to take what it wanted (as Bastiat said, "a moral code that justifies it"). After that, it was a short distance to creating a legal framework to plunder the people.
The next step? Enslaving the people. You think, how can that happen? I tell you, it has already begun. How much time did you spend on your income taxes this year? That is YOUR time, spent working for the government. For free.
With the passage of health care, whose ultimate result will be the death of the health insurance industry, that will leave the government with no choice but to assume the role of third party payer for all health care costs (God forbid we should take on this responsibility ourselves!). Then the government will decide what to pay for and how much to pay. That may sound innocent enough, but do you consider WHO gets paid? All the medical care providers in the country.
What if the government refuses to pay for what the medical provider deems the best treatment? Too bad.
What if the medical provider cannot make a living from what the government will pay? Too bad.
In a free market, if an employer wasn't willing to pay you enough to make a living from your labor, you have options. You can either go work for someone else, or take up another profession. That is not so easy when you have dedicated your life to the medical profession. That is not so easy when you have student loans to pay off for your medical education.
If you don't see it yet, we are in the process of enslaving the medical providers of this country. This is because the moral code of the Left does not recognize the rights of medical providers. It only recognizes the rights of the sick.
But I am not here to argue about the health care bill. That is just a symptom, not the disease. The disease is democracy.
Mind you, I am not recommending a dictatorship or an authoritarian state. No, a simple republic would suffice. Sadly, Ben Franklin was correctly reluctant about our ability to maintain the United States as a republic.
Why am I done blogging about politics? Simply put, political blogging is generally one of two things: I can either preach to the choir, or confront an opponent who will never be satisfied with anything less than my submission to their views. Only rarely does political blogging end in a reasonable discussion of the finer points of what public policy should be.
Preaching to the choir brings no pleasure. Arguing with an automaton who is well-versed in talking points but completely unacquainted with reason also brings no joy. So why bother?
My final message to you: Feel free to read through my past writings, and comment on them. I may even respond to your comments. But I am done with posting.
I leave you with the following thought:
"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS." - George Orwell, Animal Farm
This is not something to be desired, but it is what we have.
