Posted by
David C. Innes on Monday, August 03, 2009 8:20:43 AM
Mark Steyn points out that, sadly, the main argument against Obama's
government health care takeover is pragmatic--it would cost too much.
Rather, the argument should be a principled defense of liberty. Someone
reminded me last night that the predominant theme of Reagan's speeches
prior to becoming President was liberty, not prosperity. Prosperity is
a natural and happy consequence of liberty, but it is not the noblest
aspiration of the human heart. It is beneath contempt to choose
comfortable slavery over precarious liberty.
Steyn draws from his Canadian experience of both government health insurance and doughnuts to make his point.
You
can make the “controlling costs” argument about anything: After all,
it’s no surprise that millions of free people freely choosing how they
spend their own money will spend it in different ways than government
bureaucrats would be willing to license on their behalf. America spends
more per capita on food than Zimbabwe. America spends more on vacations
than North Korea. America spends more on lap-dancing than Saudi Arabia
(well, officially). Canada spends more per capita on doughnuts than
America — and, given comparative girths, Canucks are clearly not
getting as much bang for the buck. Why doesn’t Ottawa introduce a
National Doughnut Licensing Agency? You’d still see your general
dispenser for simple procedures like a lightly sugared cruller, but
he’d refer you to a specialist if you needed, say, a maple-frosted
custard — and it would only be a six-month wait, at the end of which
you’d receive a stale cinnamon roll. Under government regulation,
eventually every doughnut would be all hole and no doughnut, and the
problem would be solved. Even if the hole costs $1.6 trillion.
How
did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it
entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure
for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on
something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?
Read the whole article: "A Liberty Issue." (
Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.)
Zoo animals have great health care benefits. Does that life look attractive? Are you having trouble? Trying singing "Born Free" once or twice through. Maybe that will help you with your freedom vs comfortable, government captivity decision?