Welcome to Our World by Chris Rice

Imagine there’s an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here’s my question to you, and I’m almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady’s lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I’m hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow’s lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I’d say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate’s mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible, but it still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive.

This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one’s fellow man. Helping one’s fellow man in need, by reaching into one’s own pockets, is a laudable and praiseworthy goal. Doing the same through coercion and reaching into another’s pockets has no redeeming features and is worthy of condemnation.

I can’t find anything wrong with his logic. He also quotes James Madison, who said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” As Williams notes, “Tragically, today’s Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail.”

Why does this happen? Because the hospitals are full. Why are they full? I’d have to say that one of the reasons is socialized healthcare. When people catch a cold in Japan they go to a hospital. Whenever I catch a cold, people around me are puzzled when I refuse to go to the hospital. It’s practically an unwritten rule. Stuffy nose? Go to the hospital. Stub your toe? Go to the hospital. Did you just sneeze? Better get to the hospital, then.

Elderly people use ambulances as taxis because it is free. When you’re paying nothing or next to nothing for medical care, you go to the hospital for even the most minor illnesses. When you consider the ratio of doctors to patients, simple math will tell you that this isn’t going to work.

There are no doubt problems with the healthcare system in the United States, but there are problems with the systems everywhere. Personally, I think I’d rather be in the US if I was ever to get severely ill. I think it would probably be better to fix the problems with our own system rather than blindly going over to yet another system that doesn’t work the way it should.

I disagree with my fellow conservatives who think the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Frank liberal behemoth will so obviously screw up that they’ll be routed in two or four years’ time. The President-elect’s so-called “tax cut” will absolve 48 percent of Americans from paying any federal income tax at all, while those that are left will pay more. Just under half the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, on the dole. By 2012, it will be more than half, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism, and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the nanny state. That is the death of the American idea — which, after all, began as an economic argument: “No taxation without representation” is a great rallying cry. “No representation without taxation” has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it’s unsustainable and you’ve got to give some of it back?

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson publishing, encourages Christians to make these four commitments to our new president:

1. I will pray for him and our country.
2. I will assume his motives are good, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
3. I will not speak ill of him, even if I don’t always agree with him.
4. I will cast off the spirit of cynicism, and be a positive force for good.

That last one’s going to be hard, but count me in.

If this isn’t an example of deliberate fact twisting, I don’t know what is.