Thursday, August 6, 2009

Healthy Criticism

Nevada must be bursting. From the AP:
The Senate’s most powerful Democrat on Thursday scolded health care protesters dogging his party’s lawmakers at local meetings, arguing that some critics on the political right have run out of ideas – and ditched their civic manners. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada accused the protesters of trying to “sabotage” the democratic process.
So, pushing for a House bill that is too large to read and bad-mouthing “the people” isn’t sabotaging the democratic process? And is House Leader Nancy Pelosi claiming that health care protestors are “carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town hall meeting on healthcare” a positive example of civic manners?

The problem with expanding government is that once it hits a certain waist-size, it thinks of itself as a kind of god appointed to tell the people how they should live their lives. After all, we’ve given government that power, we’ve forfeited individual and community responsibilities to them, so why shouldn’t it act as if they know better?

For all intents and purposes in several aspects of our American lives, we’ve given the Federal government the green light to run our lives. Europe is suffering the consequences of this good-willed totalitarianism that has been suffocating their culture and individual freedoms for most of this decade.

When the “common people” protest and criticize, the Reids and Pelosis take it personally. It’s an affront to their reality that they are a morally-enlightened group of people who know how to run our lives better than we do. That’s why they call protestors Nazis and saboteurs. Even if the government did know how to run our lives better, it would still be wrong of them to do so.

As Mark Steyn puts it, “I’d rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.”

1 comment:

  1. Madam Pelosi is not the only one putting forth such remarks. The Coloradoan and The Reporter-Herald also encourage such factually unfounded assertions. The 8 August 2009 edition of The Reporter-Herald contains a remark in "The RH Line" which asserts conservatives are extremists.

    Thank you for your time.

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