You, the American Citizen, are stupid. That's the summation of Obama's argument for the Affordable Care Act according to today's National Review Online essay by Jonah Goldberg. If only you understood how bad your healthcare is, understood its shortcomings, you would be more than willing to throw it into the dust-bin of history and rush over to the federally ran exchanges to pay (in many cases) much, much more for the plan you need. This is factish, so therefore it is beyond refute and not open to meaningful public debate.
Before we get out of hand this is not an anti-Obama or anti-ObamaCare missive. I'll allow others to make what I feel to be a fairly obvious case against both. What concerns me more is the spread of this idea into many areas of our lives, turning what was once identified as a "free" country to one where the only freedoms we will have remaining (if you still have the money) is to determine that one day you might wear a different color of shoes just to stand out.
You may be tempted to laugh at this but consider the following:
Currently, in Houston, the so-called "smart" class has decided that charity begins and ends with government licensing, that an act as simple as feeding a homeless person must be handled in the appropriate way. In New York, then Mayor Bloomberg decided that he knew, better than you, what you want to drink and what size you wanted it in. Efforts against these restrictive laws were met with charges that those against were "misguided" or "uneducated" on the issue. If only you understood more about the issue you would immediately fall in line and join the forces of good-for-you soldiers everywhere.
Again in Houston, the demise of the Astrodome bond issue has been met with charges of voter ignorance. Never mind that the plan put forward was slap-dash and more likely than not to end up in financial distress, name-calling such as "myopic fool" and "idiot" and "against historic preservation" were blanketed across everyone who tried to put 2 and 2 together but couldn't come up with 8.
For a long time the sardine urbanists have been telling suburbanites that their chosen lifestyle is one of ignorance, instead of the individual choice home-ownership used to be. For their tight-fiscal leanings Tea Party members have been at various times labeled with a anti-homosexual vulgarity (often by elected political officials or professional campaign consultants, never mind the anti-intellectual InterLeft), charges of "mouth-breathing", being ignorant, hicks, rednecks, or (my favorite) a group that shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions in the public realm.
Sure, all members of the good-for-you club have real reasons for feeling this way, too often however those reasons are not based in political logic, but are based in pure hatred and a child-like tendency to throw a temper tantrum when they don't get their way. That America is a baby of a Nation is never seriously in doubt, that we are populated increasingly by citizens lacking intellectual and emotional maturity is becoming more obvious all the time. As a matter of fact (would I allow comments on this blog) I guarantee you that at least one commenter would try and point out my obvious stupidity for mocking them for calling names while doing so myself, the flaw in their logic obviously being that I'm not calling for their silence as they did (several times) with me on several issues. Its one thing to say your opposite's ideas are wrong-headed, poorly reasoned, of contain some other flaw. Without these things there would be no honest debate. The problem lies with trying to silence the other side because you lack the mental acuity to take their argument head-on.
This argument by censure style flourished in the climate change debate. Not only are there severe scientific concerns about reaching "consensus" based solely on computer models that appear to not be sophisticated enough to explain what is going on, there are smear campaigns against those who dare to question the veracity of the conclusions of their (supposed) intellectual betters. Unsurprisingly, this trend was started by one Albert Gore, a man so insecure of his position in life it led to rumors he was given lessons on manliness from Donna Brazile.
Were this limited to climate change it would be bad enough, I believe that the attempt to control our economy, movements, reproduction, lives, diet et al. stem from that movement and that there are horrible repercussions to allowing it to move forward. What we're seeing now is that this attitude is creeping into almost every aspect of political argument from the socialist/liberal/progressive coalition. Conformity is the new Freedom, society is the new individual and mediocrity is the new success.
No longer do Americans (except recent immigrants who still come here for a better life) aspire to "get ahead" on a large scale. To do so has been cast as greedy and wealth has been identified as something to be scorned, not as a measure of one's success. In fact, the accumulation of wealth in America today is often viewed as a character flaw unless, that is, you are wealthy and a member of the intellectually superior ruling class, many of whom (it's been recently identified) committed what would be considered fraud (and punishable by imprisonment) for members of the non-ruling class.
What has all of this led to? A de-facto prison state for one as well as a state where the once sacrosanct concept of free speech is now under serious consideration of being limited only to those who are employed by media corporations large enough to buy lobbyists to affect policy. Unfortunately, those who are spending time advocating free speech are all but admitting they no longer consider it their duty to perform the watchdog role that free political speech is supposed to ensure.
In short, we're being left with a mess. A mess of our own making, a mess that's come about because we've decided to believe those who tell us we can't do what they don't want us to do, that we NEED to live in efficiency apartments sitting asshole to elbow while they try to re-make America into something almost exactly opposite of their European ideal. They view America not as a great experiment in Democracy and self-rule, but as a gigantic 60 Trillion Dollar Man that only they have the understanding and know-how to rebuild. As part of the rebuilding process however they're only going to give you two choices, get in line or shut-up. Anything else will be met with censure, name-calling or (increasingly) imprisonment.
This is a scary thing and it should concern you greatly, regardless of what side of the political aisle you sit.
