Alexis de Tocqueville once postulated that despotism could only take seed in American democracy through a kind of soft tyranny. He said that this tyranny would “degrade men without tormenting them.” He spoke of something that did not yet exist in his world. It was the idea of this tyrant appearing not as an oppressor, but rather a “guardian.” The day that Tocqueville envisioned so long ago may be closer than we think here in America.
Today congress will vote (loosely termed if you account for all of the parliamentary gymnastics that has been going on in the past months) on a “Healthcare Reform” bill. This bill could set the wheels in motion for the growth of a permanent nanny state in America. The details of the bill are largely a mystery at this point. Nancy Pelosi said that we’d need to vote for it in order to find out what’s in it. It is so convoluted and lengthy that I can imagine that not one member of congress has fully read or understood this bill, much less the implications of it becoming law.
Every indication is that this bill will 1) eventually force private health insurance out of business from government competition that is subsidized by taxpayer money, 2) create a government bureaucracy to dictate the level of care that each person receives, 3) ration access to health care due to the limited supply of doctors and increased demand of patients, 4) drive this country into bankruptcy.
Sounds like good plan to me.
This is obviously a very polarizing issue, and support is divided today at about 48% opposing and 38% supporting, depending on your polling source.
At the core of this conflict is a differing worldview. While too complicated to fully explore now, I’ll try to explore the basic idea in future posts.
Basically, the leftist Washington elite have a small window of opportunity to make sweeping changes in our laws, and they have decided that they are the ones to make life decisions for the poor, unwashed masses. The plain folk that inhabit ‘flyover country’ need someone to watch out for them because of their basic ignorance and inability to navigate their own health care options.
Because of the tremendous need for clear thinking, these Washington intellectuals will become the Keepers and ‘we the people’ will become The Kept.
We are now experiencing a small realization of the left’s humanistic priesthood coming to power in America. I hope that this can be reversed in the Fall.
The root cause here goes back thousands of years. In future posts we’ll explore modern-day Nicolaitans of American secular culture.