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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (13973)	3/5/2010 10:05:30 AM
From: skinowski	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

it gets pretty frustrating when what I think are pretty mundane policy ideas are treated as if they were a massive communist conspiracy. I can understand such frustration. But take a look at the other side of the equation. If you have ever spent any time in a place ravaged by full blown Socialism, or another dictatorship of any sort, you may better understand those of us who are concerned about the government possibly becoming too powerful. There is a world of literature and thought out there on this subject. If you read Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" - or even simply listen to RR's speech posted here by ggcox (link below), that may be a good introduction. What you have in Europe is socialism with "a human face", and it works for them, and that's fine. They have been doing this for centuries, in some form or another. From time to time their centralized strong governments would get out of hand, and Europeans would suffer greatly from brutal wars and dictatorships. Excessively powerful governments are a devil, and if you start flirting with the devil, be ready to pay the price... sooner or later. The great discovery of America's Founders was indeed the principle of Limited Government. Regrettably, through the use of creative lawmaking, through the use of the manipulative concept of "Living Constitution", etc., we keep moving away from "Limited government, and towards an increasingly - and maybe uncontrollably - powerful one. As is commonly the case, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Better healthcare may prove to be one of those. This may not be directly related to our debate, but historically many of the greatest crimes committed by governments were justified (or spinned) as being in the best interest of "the people". Problems like healthcare may be solved without increasing the power of the centralized government. Indeed, our healthcare as we have it, with all its excessive costs and complexities and overregulation -- is to a great extent the creature of government meddling. You can see that so many of our politicians have no principles and no discipline. They put the entire nation in danger through reckless overspending, borrowing and creation of money out of thin air. They will never be able to deliver what they promise. Message 26363165