America just had a horrible
experience with Florida’s single-minded George Zimmerman, who caused mayhem allegedly
to keep other Americans safe.
Senator Ted Cruz is trying to
convince Republicans to act like vigilantes in Washington and with the same righteous
zeal. A nation asleep must be saved from itself as well as from suspicious young men
in the neighborhood.
Indeed, fear of young people
also drives his nightmare.
Conservative pundit George F.
Will captures Cruz’s case for doing
whatever it takes to stop the implementation of universal health insurance:
“It is two minutes until
midnight. On Jan. 1, the ACA’s insurance subsidies begin, like a heroin drip,
making Americans instant addicts. The Obama administration knows that no major
entitlement, once tasted, has been repealed.”
The heroin that’s been cooking in Washington for
three generations, of course, is fine for veterans, the disabled, children of
the very poor, Congressmen and Congresswomen, most public servants, and anyone over 65.
They can manage it; and, anyway, those individuals who overdose, after all,
were doing something for America before they grew old.
Ted Cruz proves again that you can be brassy, Ivy
School–educated, called a conservative populist and not understand your
civilization’s history or trust the people you’re paid to represent.
The word “entitlement” is being thrown around now
with the same promiscuous dread that “greedy,” “inattentive,” and “shiftless” were
whispered by aristocrats to express their unease about the mischievous idea of
extending the vote to the wider population.
The aristocrats, at least, were afraid of a new
idea.
After more than a century of experience with
wide-open mass democracy, however, the Cruzes and Ryans of Washington still believe
that although they can learn from their mistakes and live within their means, the
insatiable, myopic masses cannot.
It’s easier to recommend an icy shower than take
one.
Still, in Canada, Europe, and the United States,
popular public services are reformed
and replaced by governments that survive and go on to get re-elected. With a
compelling case against business as usual, people will accept weekly garbage
collection, user fees, de-control of rents, less protection for labor-intensive
industries, elimination of electricity rate subsidies, and, for instance, tighter
conditions on unemployment, pension, and health benefits.
Universal health insurance needn’t limit the
freedom of future national governments to make fiscally responsible decisions
and should make America a healthier place to live.
A democracy that can manage nuclear weapons,
Senator Cruz, will survive Obamacare.
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