The White House Blog on Tuesday, August 4th titles an entry “Facts Are Stubborn Things.” In it is posted a video of Linda Douglass, the Communications Director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, trying to diffuse criticism of the Obama Health Care takeover by showing two clips of President Obama re-stating his oft-heard yet irrelevant contention that the new Health Care “Reform” bill will not take away the health care options of anyone who likes his or her current provider. Of course, facts are stubborn things, and the facts (read: common sense) stubbornly refuse to support Obama’s talking point.
Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics knows that what he is saying is patently false. The moment the government nationalizes medical insurance, it will undercut all other insurers since the Government doesn’t need to make a profit, whereas insurers do. Employers, always mindful of their bottom line, will immediately transfer over to the Government plan and all ability of the insured to choose their provider will be lost. The resultant overload of the government system will force the rationing of health care services. Soon, the other insurers will be forced out of business and Voilà!, we will have arrived at the goal, previously stated by the President and others like Barney Frank, of a single-payer, Government-run system–just like the failing, overburdened socialized medicine systems of Canada and England.
Now, since facts are stubborn things, the only way the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats can contend with facts that contradict their unfounded assertions is to demonize their opponents. Nancy Pelosi makes bizarre and fantastic claims that opponents of the Health Care Industry takeover arrive at Town hall meetings displaying Swastikas! Barbara Boxer makes up wondrous tales of “well-dressed” yet angry “mobs” who must (obviously) be paid by nefarious rabble-rousers to undermine the saintly agenda of the President. Instead of their concerns being addressed, these eloquent common folk, fired by the passion of their convictions and legitimately dismayed by the direction our country is going in, are dismissed across the board by Democrat legislators as mere rabble. Is this what our Founders envisioned as a representative form of government?
Still, one can easily write off the flailing response of legislators who see their unbridled quest for power being undermined by a populace informed of the stubborn facts. Much more frightening, is what is written next on that White House blog:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
So, let me get this straight: the same people who went ballistic over a supposed “invasion of privacy” because the Bush Administration dared to use computerized (read, mechanical) monitoring of phone lines to ferret out domestic terrorists, are now asking that personal e-mails and “casual conversation(s)” that disagree with the Party Line be reported to the Feds? If I dare to send my friends an e-mail that contains some stubborn facts – leave aside this highly public article – will I be visited by the “men in black”? Maybe I should get my tax records in order for the coming IRS audit.
Anyone who has read Jonah Goldberg’s seminal history book Liberal Fascism will immediately recognize what is going on here. Leftist ideology, to the large extent that it is indistinguishable today from Fascist ideals, depends largely upon shutting down the free flow of information. Furthermore, as the supposed “Health Care Crisis” and the “Climate Change Crisis” so aptly illustrate, the modern Left (a far cry from classic Liberalism) needs to manufacture crises to get it’s agenda passed before anyone can understand or object. After all, it’s all those stubborn facts that keep getting in the way of “transformation,” and one way to insure that a crisis remains a crisis is to limit public access to those doggone stubborn facts.
There was a huge “crisis” that needed Congress to immediately pass the “Stimulus” bill. Over a thousand pages long, it couldn’t wait long enough for the members of Congress to read it. Forget the Obama campaign promise to have a five-day period for public comment before any bill is passed. No, the “crisis” was too great to spare even a moment’s delay. Of course, once it was passed, the Obama Administration took several days to arrange a wastefully expensive photo-op bill-signing in Denver. So much for urgency.
As it is, we as a people, are already deep into uncharted territory when it comes to the effects of an unprecedented expansion of Government spending and control of our personal lives. Everyone–Left, Right, or Center–should be very alarmed by the kind of rhetoric coming from the White House that I quoted above. The White House is now explicitly asking us to snitch on our neighbors. In this great country, the foundation of our freedom depends upon our ability to know and disseminate the stubborn facts and then debate their consequences. Let’s all make sure that those pesky, stubborn facts can continue to be freely spoken.