Mark Steyn took Pete Stark’s lunatic ravings about the pseudo Republican War on children and honed in on the real issue and the real war. After pointing out how much material wealth Graeme Frost’s family has (jobs, homes, cars), yet it still demands free health insurance funded by those less wealthy, Steyn wrapped up with this point:
The Frosts are not emblematic of the health care needs of America so much as they are of the delusion of the broader Western world. They expect to be able to work “part-time” and “intermittently” but own two properties and three premium vehicles and have the state pick up health care costs. Who do you stick with the bill? Four-car owners? Much of France already lives that way: A healthy, wealthy, well-educated populace works a mandatory maximum 35-hour week with six weeks of paid vacation and retirement at 55 and with the government funding all the core responsibilities of adult life.
I’m in favor of tax credits for child health care, and Health Savings Accounts for adults, and any other reform that emphasizes the citizen’s responsibility to himself and his dependents. But middle-class entitlement creep would be wrong even if was affordable, even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover it every month: it turns free-born citizens into enervated wards of the Nanny State. As Gerald Ford likes to say when trying to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” But there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. As I point out in my book, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than socially equitable communitarianism: Once a fellow’s enjoying the fruits of Euro-style entitlements, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he’s got his, and who cares if it’s going to bankrupt the state a generation hence?
That’s the real “war on children”: in Europe, it’s killing their future. Don’t make the same mistake here.
Filed under: Welfare | Tagged: 145, 659, 708, 765, 802, 879 |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
True communisim is a “dead” policy (theology) stating no one is responsible for his or her own life and your life is truely communal property. This is the real effort of those in favor of universal health care. The one issue that can rob people of their power over the state is their children. Take away the resposibility and authority to raise your own children and you will bend to the will of whatever authority in charge because you love your children.
Steyn understands sociodynamics better than any other commentator writing today. His grasp of the forces that power the politics of redistribution would qualify him to be a king, if there were a nation sane enough to have him.
Incidentally, if you have yet to enjoy it., America Alone makes truly terrifying reading.
[…] UPDATE: Others: Mondoreb, Fausta, Bookworm Room, […]
As per my description of the Left before, the Left truly does understand human nature. At least enough to ensure the destruction of humans. After all, the Left cannot understand man’s better nature, only his worst nature. Therefore, the Left can make good use of humanity’s self-interest motivation, but only to create a wide swath of destruction for generations on end. They cannot do as the Founding Fathers and use self-interest to build a better future. A better future defined as a future better for people other than the government and the politicians.
The power of destruction is quite potent, even without its twin.
This kind of parasitism does work. Nature has some species and organisms that do rely upon parasitism in order to survive. One might say that there is a “niche” for parasitism, meaning that parasitism is like a vacuum that will eventually be filled by something. It is sort of like a bell curve in a sense. When all the productive and cooperative niches of vegetarians and carmivores have been filled, what is left for the lonely Leftists, Book?
The Left cannot eat meat for they can only kill at the command of others. They would starve without masters to tell them what to do. The Left cannot eat grass because they are not patient enough, since they are always on the lookout for ways to create utopia and perfection. Such things do not feed the family. Finally, they cannot be omnivores because the Left abhors balance of thought, belief, and spirit. Parasitism is the only thing available for them. Every other path is much much harder to fullfill.
Care for alternative opinion Monty?
http://emberglow.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/review-of-america-alone-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-by-mark-steyn/
True communisim isn’t a “dead” policy. It’s a policy of future.
hey, I just found your blog – thanks. I wanted to tell ya that it’s not showing up properly on the BlackBerry Browser (I have a Bold). Definitely on your feed on my laptop, so thanks a million