The Bent Page

The United States of America has always been a work in progress, a  grand experiment. Now, the experiment has concluded. Human nature being what it is, the citizenry of this nation have succumbed to the siren call of socialism. In reaction to poor leadership, worse leadership was installed, all by the common vote, all above board. It will be told in history books of the future that this year, 2010, was the one in which tyranny sunk its fangs into the victim, injected its socialist infection, and thereby terminated the best hope for freedom loving souls of the world.

The disease is touted as the cure, healthcare for all as a way to stave off bankruptcy. Only fools believe this. Spending a trillion borrowed dollars, destroying the private efforts of millions, and strangling the future innovation through monstrous regulation will do nothing to improve the economics of the country. At the same time, it will not provide quality healthcare. It will do the opposite as too many places around the world have seen. Consider that in Spain, many medical equipment suppliers wait more than 300 days for payment, sometimes as long as 500 days, and the single-payer system is billions in the hole. The same can be said for Britain, France, and so on. But not in America! This time it will work! This time we’ll get it right! And the dolts and morons chant and cheer: Huzzah to the chief!

Every future healthcare decision will be decided by a blind committee, by some abstractly constructed algorithm. Just as in my novel, Universal Coverage, the body politic will dominate every aspect of future medical endeavors. Citizen will be pitched against citizen as the zero-sum game of the socialist construct spreads through the system. The stain of contempt between once amiable parties will surface where it is least expected. Every act of a medical person will be questioned as a political move in favor of one person over another. Bitterness will be the common bond of a miserable population.

It won’t stop with health care. The socialist march, the tyrannical beast, will scratch and claw until it consumes the energy industry, the remainder of the manufacturing sector, and what pieces of the transportation business it does not already dominate. This animal is never satisfied. After it has consumed the entire wealth of the nation it will turn on itself as it has in every political subdivision around the world.

Thus ends the American Experiment, with a sigh and moan, a plea for the common good. It is a self-imposed failure, the preference of humans for the yoke of predicable mediocrity instead of the magnificent potential of freedom.

God help us all.