By Robert Ringer - Tuesday, May 7, 2013
It seems like just yesterday that liberty lovers were doggedly trying to get the attention of low-information voters who were oblivious to the horrors on the Obamacare horizon. But now, as the long-concealed facts about Obamacare are surfacing at an accelerating rate, more and more free-ride fools are starting to get it: Obamacare has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with increasing the power of politicians over their subjects.
Obamacare accomplishes this by being a massive redistribution-of-wealth scheme. Political hack Donald Berwick, whom Obama named as the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2010, made this clear to the sleepwalking public back in 2008 when he said, “Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must — must — redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.” Nasty, but honest.
Why is it important to understand that Obamacare has nothing to do with providing people with affordable healthcare — that it’s nothing more than a redistribution-of-wealth scheme aimed at increasing government power? Because so long as politicians and the media are successful in peddling the fairy tale that Obamacare is a serious program that addresses the healthcare needs of every citizen, people will continue to obediently march toward their unaffordable healthcare deaths — as in, death panels.
Gay marriage … abortion on demand … illegal immigration … Benghazi-gate … Obama’s vacations and golf matches … Fast and Furious — all interesting topics to ponder and debate. But they are nothing more than distractions from the central issue of government tyranny: increasing power over the citizenry through the lure of redistribution-of-wealth schemes.
Of course, none of this is new. I have long maintained that Barack Obama gets far too much credit for transforming America into a nation of socialist tyranny. The Presidential Imposter is merely an accomplished facilitator, and the sad truth is that if he had never risen from the community-organizing sewers, we still would have arrived at where we find ourselves today — just not as quickly.
We were moving toward more government power and less individual freedom quite nicely even under Ronald Reagan, let alone George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. While professing to be conservatives, Republican presidents and congressmen have been passing legislation to redistribute wealth for decades with nary a pause.
That’s right, both Democrats and Republicans have been leading us down the road to serfdom for at least a hundred years. February marked the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 16th Amendment (giving Congress the power to tax incomes), the Holy Grail of increasing government power through the redistribution of wealth. It’s no coincidence that the Federal Reserve, the perfect complement to the income tax, was also created in 1913. Taxing and printing beat two aces every time.
Since the vast majority of countries throughout recorded history have been ruled by a dictatorship of one kind or another, people unhappy with their financial status have never been much of a problem. They were, and still are, simply jailed or extinguished. Think Saddam, Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon — all the way back to Rome or even ancient Egypt.
What made America unique was that the Founding Fathers set up a government whose main purpose was not to redistribute people’s wealth but protect it. Almost paradoxically, however, they also instituted free speech, which gave people the right to openly demand higher incomes.
Because they clearly understood human nature, the Founders were skeptical about their experiment in self-government. They realized that, human nature being what it is, no matter how much workers are compensated, they will always claim to be underpaid.
But it’s worse than that. Even if everyone’s wages were tripled overnight, the triplees would still complain — as they do now — about the “unequal distribution of wealth.” Of course, in a free society, the demand for higher wages is legitimate free speech. But the demand for redistribution of wealth is a call for politicians to violate the Constitution and take people’s property by force rather than protect it.
Even so, not one conservative member of Congress has ever dared to state the obvious — that there is nothing inherently wrong or immoral about unequal distribution of wealth. Conversely, redistribution of wealth — even to a small degree — is inherently immoral.
This lack of moral courage on the part of politicians is why redistribution of wealth has long been an accepted part of our modern socialist fabric. All the Kenyan Kommie wants to do is move things along at a faster pace.
Which is where Obamacare comes in. It is the boldest, most brazen scheme to redistribute wealth in American history. Unfortunately, as we approach January 1, 2014, the day Obamacare will begin to grab the entertainment-addicted public by the wallet, it appears unlikely that anyone will do anything to try to stop it.
It’s true that more and more people are becoming aware of some of the nastier aspects of Obamacare, e.g., excise taxes on medical devices, penalties for individuals and employers who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, and a 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans. And the talk-radio guys are warning them that hundreds of new taxes, penalties, restrictions, and rules are on the way.
Optimists believe there is a chance that the whole noxious Obamacare scheme will implode before it kicks in full bore on January 1. I’d like to believe that, but I’d feel more confident if those optimists were on television every night hammering home the most important thing about Obamacare — that it is, at its core, totally unconstitutional, not to mention the fact that it has nothing to do with making healthcare affordable to more people.
But for some reason, no one seems to care about the fact that it’s unconstitutional — not even the chief justice of the Supreme Court. And certainly not Republicans in Congress, because, if they did, they would feel duty bound to defund Obamacare on constitutional grounds.
Sometimes I feel very lonely, but I guess it’s to be expected when you have goofy thoughts that are so far outside the mainstream. Anyone care to join me?
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Copyright © 2013 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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