There is nothing in the Constitution that grants the federal government the authority to regulate the health care industry, much less the right to actually administer any portion of it. Of course, the same statement can be made about education, disability, retirement, insurance, employment, housing and so many other key aspects of our society and the US economy. That hasn’t stopped the feds from assuming control of these enterprises – sometimes partial, increasingly total. Moreover, all three branches of the government have colluded in the lawlessly unconstitutional usurpation of the people’s rights in these matters.

But the people are complicit. By repeatedly electing politicians who boldly proclaim their intention to enhance federal power, the people knowingly empower those who rob the people of their rights. By not recalling judges who ratify the government’s implementation of unconstitutional authority, the people acquiesce in the curtailment of the rights granted to them in our founding documents. By supporting statist policies and programs that assign responsibility for managing the mundane details of their lives to Uncle Sam, the people surrender the liberties envisioned for them by their forefathers and enjoyed by their ancestors.

Why do people do these things? I submit for your consideration three reasons: greed, laziness and ignorance. Perhaps greed is too strong a term. But people want stuff. Whether it is quality and affordable health care, a nice home, an outstanding education, a good job or a comfortable retirement, people naturally desire such things. It can be difficult to secure them. If the federal government is willing to help, doesn’t it make sense to allow it? Or even encourage it?

This leads us to the second reason? Again, perhaps laziness is too strong a word. But life is hard. Aside from the high cost of obtaining the aforementioned items, the act of doing so is often impeded by difficult family matters, incidental illness or injury, haphazard crime or natural disaster, and unsympathetic friends and co-workers. It’s enough to discourage one from even trying. A little help from a benevolent government can make a difference.

And that is where ignorance comes in. All of these obstacles were anticipated by our Founders. They knew, therefore, that our system of government – structured for a free people to govern themselves – would only work if the people were moral, disciplined, well-educated, responsible, self-reliant, modest and respectful of their neighbor. Alas, the progressives, who have taken control of all the opinion-molding organs of American society over the last century, have done their best to undermine in the populace all of the virtues required by the Founders’ recipe to work. Too many people no longer understand that relinquishing to the government the responsibility for running their own lives will inevitably lead to tyranny. As the famous saying – mistakenly attributed to Jefferson – goes, “A government that is big enough to give you everything you need is also strong enough to take from you everything you have.” [The actual Jefferson quote is: “The natural progression of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”] It is in the natural order of things for governments to take far more than they give – for they have nothing to give John but what they take from Sam.

And so through Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA and, of course, Obamacare, the government has taken nearly complete control of the health care industry in America. The polls say that most people are unhappy about that development. Well, they have only themselves to blame. They put Obama and the Democrats in a position to impose on us the Frankenstein monster known as Obamacare. It’s not like Obama and the Dems hid, before the 2008 election, their intention to do it. The people elected them anyway. Greed, laziness and ignorance!

We are told that Obamacare was modelled after its precursor Romneycare in Massachusetts. Now, several state governments have decided that Obamacare does not go far enough in controlling the people’s health care. For example, I learned just last week about O’Malleycare. Martin O’Malley is Governor of the State of Maryland – in which progressive paradise I happen to reside. O’Malley has deemed that even though individuals are now dependent on government for their health care, they are still behaving in an irresponsible fashion. They eat too much, get fat, become sick and then spend too many health care dollars. Or they ignore health warnings (like high blood pressure, diabetes or a family history of cancer) and fall prey to expensive illnesses. Worst of all, they don’t follow the instructions of their physicians. Well, O’Malley will put a stop to that nonsense. Henceforth, all health insurance policies for state employees and retirees (and others soon I presume) will entail a contractual agreement between the State, the health insurer and the insuree. Everyone will have to undergo an initial medical assessment – presumably by a doctor of their choosing. The doctor is obliged to perform a health evaluation on the insuree, and then provide a plan of health care maintenance for the individual. If the insuree adheres to the plan, various discounts for medical services will ensue. If the insuree violates the doctor’s plan, then fees and financial penalties will be assessed on the individual. How often the assessment must be performed is unclear.

The mechanisms for administering and enforcing this government diktat are buried in a document, which – although not as long as the Obamacare bill – is just as obtuse and impenetrable. One more layer of my individual freedom is peeled away by a supposedly benevolent, but, in fact, a misguided and ultimately insidious government.

“But,” say the new mandate’s supporters, “this is for your own good and, anyway, government has to do something to rein in health care costs. Well, it is not big brother’s place to tell me what is good for me. As long as I don’t harm anyone else, my health concerns are none of government’s business. And if the government was not running health care, it would not be incurring any costs that it felt the need to control.

If we are to halt government’s increasing encroachment on our freedoms, we must find a way to overcome the greed, laziness and ignorance instilled by the progressive-controlled, opinion-molding organs of society. If conservatives do not contest the liberal cultural hegemony and ultimately reassert control of those organs that drive the culture, then you can kiss the good old USA goodbye.

This essay also appeared in The American Thinker

Follow Ron Lipsman on Twitter @rlipsman

The cable news programs are enjoying a boom time. They have so much scandalous material to choose from that it’s a challenge to cover all the domestic and international crises in a one hour program. Indeed, the attention of the American people is increasingly drawn to an incredibly wide and varied series of crises and scandals. Not any one of them compares in seriousness to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor; but in breadth and number, they represent a panoply of domestic and foreign crises that is arguably unparalleled in American history.

Now one might argue that this is a singular piece of bad luck for President Obama – namely, that so many crises have landed in his inbox at the same time. In fact, the bad luck is more accurately ascribed to the American people, because events of the last few years reveal unquestionably that Obama is totally unable to deal with any of these crises. The USA is witnessing a spectacular failure of leadership, characterized by: manifold manifestations of misguided analysis; timid, confused and inappropriate responses to pressing concerns; as well as deceitful and unlawful actions by the executive branch of government. But it is worse than that. For in every instance, at least one of the underlying causes of the crisis can be traced to the policies, attitudes and actions of the Obama administration.

Before justifying that assertion, let’s supply a (non-comprehensive) list of the crises and scandals that beset team Obama:

(a)    War in Ukraine and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by a Russian-made missile.

(b)   War in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

(c)    The ongoing failure to explain how the IRS came to target conservative groups.

(d)   The failure to prevent or investigate the murder of US Embassy and CIA personnel in Benghazi, Libya.

(e)   The stunning incompetence of the Veteran’s Administration (VA) that has resulted in the needless deaths of American veterans.

(f)     The invasion of our country by illegal aliens – many of them unaccompanied minors.

(g)    The disintegration of Iraq and the establishment of a terrorist Islamic caliphate in its stead.

(h)   Iran on the verge of nuclear weapons, facilitated by pretend negotiations that no one believes will forestall the acquisition of nukes by the mullahs.

(i)      The threat of Afghanistan following Iraq into the toilet.

(j)     The lawless behavior of the President – making and altering laws without congressional authorization.

(k)    An anemic economic recovery from the “Great Recession,” marked by the lowest labor participation rate in 40 years, stagnant wages, and untold twenty-somethings living in their parents’ basement.

(l)      An exploding federal debt, thanks to supra-$1M deficits in Obama’s first four years – today, he brags that the deficit is only a half-trillion dollars.

(m) The death of the Keystone pipeline and the crippling of the American energy industry caused by outrageous environmental policies.

I could go on (Obamacare, Fast & Furious, Boko Haram, Libya,…), but, in the interest of brevity, I kept the list to a baker’s dozen. The desired brevity will require that the explanation of how Obama’s paw prints are all over every one of these crises shall be restricted to a few lines. However, each cause/effect scenario has been flushed out more fully in the blogosphere, and I leave it to the diligent reader to pursue any that interest him. Here are the connections:

(a)    War in Ukraine. Obama’s obsequious efforts to appease Putin have only emboldened the czar wannabee to recklessly pursue a restoration of the Russian Empire.

(b)   War in Gaza. Obama’s maltreatment of Israel and coddling of Muslim extremists has had the easily foreseen consequence of encouraging Hamas to pursue its rocket attacks on and infiltrations into Israel. Sensing no help forthcoming from the benighted one, the Israelis took matters into their own hands.

(c)    IRS. Even if Obama did not issue a direct order, his tone and that of his lieutenants conveyed the message to Lois Lerner (and others) that it was not only alright, but encouraged to harass conservative groups and prevent them from obtaining tax-exempt status.

(d)   Benghazi. It would have severely impeded Obama’s re-election effort to admit that the attacks on the US Consulate and CIA Annex were pre-planned terrorist assaults by jihadists. Better to blame an obscure video than to acknowledge that the War on Terror had not been won – as Obama claimed. Why was there no prior beef up of security? Ask Hilary!

(e)   VA. Despite campaign promises to clean up the mess at the VA, Obama purposefully ignored the matter; it was not part of his plan to “fundamentally transform America.”

(f)     Alien invasion. Tens of millions of future Democrat voters and government dependents are too appetizing for Obama to pass up. “Please come in” is his unmistakable message. He desires it so much that he practically issues an invitation by his unlawful executive implementation of a pseudo DREAM Act, and he facilitates it by refusing to secure the border.

(g)    Iraq. At the risk of a “blue” interpretation, can you say “pulling out too early!”

(h)   Iranian nukes. Obama shows his disdain for Israel, America and Western Civilization by refusing to take the actions required (military and non-military) to prevent Iran’s acquisition of the bomb. He gives the impression that he believes that Iran has as much right as the US or Israel to possess nuclear weapons.

(i)      Afghanistan. See (g) above.

(j)     Lawlessness. Obama displays his disrespect for the Constitution that he is sworn to “preserve, protect and defend” by asserting that Republicans in Congress have no right not to endorse and vote for his leftist programs. Since the GOP refuses to kneel, he will implement his policies without their consent – as if he were a monarch.

(k)    Economic recovery. Obama may not have caused the recession of 2007-2009, but his refusal to lower taxes, decrease regulations, open up the domestic energy industry and rein in federal spending – that is, by pursuing an economic program that is virtually the reverse of the policies implemented by Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan – has mired the economy in a seemingly permanent torpid phase of anemic growth.

(l)      Deficit and Debt. Obama ignores: the impending entitlement crisis, the indebtedness to China, the projection of unaffordable interest payments (on the debt) swamping the budget, and the moral crime of passing these burdens on to our children and grandchildren. His economic policies are crippling the middle class. Barack couldn’t care less; he keeps piling on the debt.

(m) Energy. Obama is an environmental fundamentalist. His maniacal green policies have not only stopped the Keystone pipeline, but also prevented the development of LNG terminals, halted offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands, and destroyed the clean coal industry. Is it any wonder that the domestic energy enterprise is in crisis?

The question that the American people must ask themselves is how they could have empowered this rank amateur by placing him in a position to do the enormous harm that he has. Americans elevated to the presidency a man: with no executive or managerial experience; whose background (including his mentors) was rife with leftist radicals; who made no secret of his disdain for America and his desire to transform it from a constitutional republic into a collectivist, centrally-managed, Euro-style social welfare state; who also made no attempt to hide his contempt for free market capitalism; and whose vison of America was not that of a nation dedicated to individual liberty, which faithfulness to that dedication had saved the world twice from totalitarianism. Instead he saw an America defined by the warts that he identified: slavery, brutalization of the native peoples, discrimination against women and minorities, confinement of Japanese-Americans, pillage of foreign lands and unequal distribution of wealth. His America needed fixing, a fundamental transformation.

Armed with enormous self-confidence (that frequently spilled over into arrogance), copious charm, an engaging style, a soothing and eloquent voice, and aided by a compliant media, he convinced the public that he would “heal America.” In fact, his intent was to “remake America.” And to anyone with half an eye open, that was obvious from his first appearance on the national stage. How could the people be so blind? America committed not just a reckless act by electing Obama, but arguably an act of national suicide – twice! It defies belief.

Why we did it is a story that has been told by many. I would cite two examples: America: Imagine a World without Her by Dinesh D’Souza and Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance by Barry Rubin. They, like others, point out that a decades-long brainwashing of the people by the media, the educational establishment and all the other opinion-molding organs of national culture – virtually all of which had come under leftist control in the twentieth century – played a huge role. But as the biblical admonition says: “What ye sow, so shall ye reap.” The multiple crises are a direct consequence of Obama’s transformational program.

In response, Obama seems at times bewildered, at other times disinterested. He is bewildered because he didn’t anticipate the developments – he believes his own propaganda and thinks that nearly everyone appreciates his actions. The jolts and shocks from his misguided policies are a genuine surprise for him. But he is also disinterested because he doesn’t care for the most part. Certainly he doesn’t care about the international crises – his total fixation is on remaking America. Moreover, many of the domestic crises don’t prove a threat to his transformational efforts (they even help sometimes). So why get bent out of shape?

The last president who doubted America’s overall goodness and who made attempts to fix us was Jimmy Carter. (Although, truth be told, Carter was far less radical than Obama). Of course, Carter made a mess too. But thankfully, Ronald Reagan arrived to clean up the mess. Is there a second Reagan who will clean up Obama’s mess? Or is the mess beyond the capabilities of even a Reaganesque figure? We shall know relatively soon. If we survive, we will look back and wonder how we could have been so insane as to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.

This essay also appeared in Canada Free Press