Obama is famous for having brought "The Chicago Way" to national politics, to the character of the presidency. What does this mean, exactly?
In politics, Leftists pursue power while conservatives pursue principle. I know. Rolling of eyes. Screeches of outrage. Sarcastic catcalls. "Everybody does it."
"Even if it's true, you don't mean all Leftists..." Well...yes. To the extent that we organize ourselves into groups, then the members of a group are advancing the objectives of that group. If you are a Democrat, you are advancing the objectives of the Democratic Party.
Look at the difference between a Leftist in power and a conservative in power. If you were to accuse a conservative in power of favoring one group over another in a civic matter because of the political support of that group, the conservative would be affronted.
If you were to accuse a Leftist of doing the same thing, the Leftist would be proud. "You got the message. If you are on our side, good things happen. If you are not, bad things happen." The Chicago Way is simply a harder nosed and more shameless version of that.
Here is the John Le Carre twist in this. The only way the Leftists can expand the power, the reach, of the government is by pretending that the government is guided by conservative principles. I.e., that the government will act dispassionately in everyone's best interest intermixed with mercy in more extreme cases (ignoring Hayek's argument that it is impossible for the government to have this sort of knowledge). If the government is going to be an instrument of control and retribution, the public would not countenance its expansion.
ObamaCare is not there to provide us with health care. We already have that. It is there to prevent us from getting health care - to ration it. And we are paying for the privilege. The government has no source of income except us. So it can only pay for our health care with our money. It is not giving us anything.
The IRS is going to be the enforcer of ObamaCare. Yes, the first step is that the IRS is "only" going to check that everybody has paid for it. But if that is all that is involved, why do we need 16,000 more IRS agents when we know that a huge number of them now are doing nothing but harassing innocents?
And since we are adults, we do not have to accept the "Little Red Reader" version that we are being spoon-fed. This approach to health care is going to require rationing and who is the enforcer of that rationing going to be? Lois Lerner.
So, what does ObamaCare come down to? LoisLernerCare. Lois Lerner is the face of ObamaCare. She is the one who is going to decide whether your family deserves this or that procedure. Scary enough for you?
Let's return to the Leftist view vs. the conservative view. Lois Lerner is not embarrassed that she was head of the department that used the power of the IRS to diminish the presence of the Tea Party in the last election. She is proud of it! That was what she was there for! Conservatives are subversives, terrorists, racists, whatever calumny the Left can dream up. She was doing - I can't say "God's work" because God does not exist on the Left - let's say, the work of history. She was fulfilling her mission. Yes, there is the detail of criminal behavior, but that will get ironed out.
"Now 'den" as Dr. Strangelove would say, when you watch your children playing in the yard, is LoisLernerCare what you want for them where their lives as members of a conservative family will have less value to the State than those of favored groups, whatever groups may be in fashion at the time?
All the while paying for the whole thing?
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