In the debate over government-run healthcare, I’m pleased that the debate (if not necessarily the actions of the Democratic congress and the White House) is going in the right direction. Americans are largely saying, as my grandmother used to when voicing dissent, “nothin’ doin.’” It’s a fight we can still win.

There is, however, an element of the debate that is going all but completely ignored: secularization.

The two closest hospitals from my old neighborhood were called Resurrection and Lutheran General. Consider other hospital names across the country: First Methodist, Holy Family, Zion, Sinai, etc. Were the government to employ a system in which they pay the doctors and medical staff, they run in the tricky area in which taxpayers are funding religious organizations. The ACLU would be up in arms in a matter of minutes.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I am focusing on a very small part of an infinitely larger picture. However, in a country where First Amendment religious freedom is a bedrock element of our founding principles, I feel as though someone needs to talk about it. Secularization is dangerous, and the next salvo from the secularist left is going to be coming out of the Trojan horse of federal healthcare.

It goes without saying that the American left has taken a very extreme interpretation of “separation of church and state” in recent decades, and it seems that this would be a predictable extension of that viewpoint. Imagine: hospitals being forced to change their names, to fire chaplains, and to seal off chapels in order to accept patients under the government healthcare plans. Or worse: ambulances ordered to redirect patients only to secular hospitals. If a hospital called “Sacred Heart” is four miles away, and one called “County General” is ten miles away, it would make basic sense for the ambulance carrying the patient in cardiac arrest to go to Sacred Heart. But, pursuant to the logic of the Democratic Party’s directing of tax dollars, the ambulance would have to go to County General. And the patient could die in the process.

Now, I’ll cede that nobody on the left has made this call yet. To my knowledge, nobody calling for government healthcare is demanding a directing of funds away from religious-backed organizations, but I know liberal America, and I promise you that this battle is coming. And sooner than you think. Remember, this is the political ideology that has complaints with Christian crosses on sites of veterans’ monuments and memorials. Would these people really sit by quietly while tax dollars went to institutions named after religious figures, employers of workers whose jobs center on religion, and edifices that house religious monuments (such as chapels)?

When the government gets involved with something, that something will invariably break down and do more harm than good. Healthcare will be no exception. Should the DC Democrats get their way, religious America will suffer yet another blow from the same minds that brought you the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse. 

“Pay no attention to the Government behind the curtain…”

This has been the essence of the Democratic Party’s stance on Federally run health care for some time now. And it was also the essence of the case that President Obama tried to make while visiting our mutual hometown of Chicago, today.

For starters, thinking Americans already know that Federal labor law requires employers to offer some sort of healthcare coverage to full-time employees. So, if you’re working full-time and do not have healthcare coverage for your family, it’s your own fault for not knowing your rights as a worker.

This will not, however, stop the march of Big Government. President Obama promises that he will allow you to keep your private insurance. Sure. What the Left is failing to tell you is that the Obama Healthcare plan will be the de facto death of private insurance because employers will buy the cheapest healthcare plans for their employees. When the Government becomes that lowest bidder, all full-time employees will be on Government healthcare.

The second point that the Left ignores—and banks on your ignorance of—is the fact that it is 100% illegal for a hospital or health care provider to deny care and service to a patient based on his or her inability to pay. This is how the homeless, the illegal aliens, and the unemployed have managed to secure healthcare in spite of their lack of insurance. And make no mistake: the taxpayer foots the bill. To be clear, this writer has no problem with this law, and I’m willing to call this a responsible use of taxpayer money. But the left is exploiting the fact that so few members of the middle class, upper middle class, and upper class know about these laws. Ta-daa! The left has created an instant sympathy group—the uninsured Americans. As long as you don’t notice those pesky laws that the Left hopes you don’t know about.

What we’re seeing here is another failure in education. People need to know about the laws that already exist to protect them. If ignorance of the law is no excuse for committing a crime, then why is ignorance an excuse for a voting pattern? People need to wake up and look at the world around them before subscribing to the dishonest propaganda of the Left. When it comes to healthcare, America has been covered for some time. The Obama Healthcare Plan amounts to one thing: a power grab that will topple even more Constitutional freedoms in the false name of “saving a victim.” But, as usual, the victim that the Left is claiming to fight for doesn’t really exist.

This whole situation is like that scene from The Wizard of Oz; we have but to peer around the flashy lights, puffs of smoke, and special mirrors to see what lies behind the curtain: a Big Government that is already pulling all the strings.

Gotta love the media.

I absolutely love the coverage that all of the media outlets are giving to the AIG bonuses. To hear them tell it:

“Look at those horrible capitalists! They’re being bad with money! For shame…”

Yeah. OK. Now; let’s look at what really happened. Here’s the whole picture:

1)   AIG, like so many other groups, was irresponsible with money. So, they lost money and faced a financial meltdown. Such is the nature of free-market capitalism. In other words: they SHOULD have failed. That’s how people and companies learn.

2)   The Government decides to float those irresponsible individuals a crap load of our money.

3)   The irresponsible company fails to learn their lesson; assumes that there will always be a government safety net.

4)   The company continues the irresponsible behavior by giving outlandish bonuses to executives. Much like a child assumes that he can blow all his birthday money on candy and trading cards, and mommy and daddy will still provide for his other wants.

Can anybody say, “Duh?” What the hell did you think was going to happen? Rewarding bad behavior only yields more bad behavior. The Government essentially gave AIG a pat on the back for bad business practices, and now they are claiming to be surprised that the bad business practices didn’t change? Are we serious here?

I don’t blame AIG for blowing money on bonuses. That’s not the part that I find egregious.  I have issues with the government giving them money in the first place. Just like I don’t blame the child in the above example for wasting all his money. Just like I don’t blame that same child when he cries and whines and screams in the middle of the supermarket when his parents don’t buy him the new toy he wants. I blame the parents for letting him waste his money in the first place. I blame the parents for letting that child think that he was entitled to anything he wanted. By the same token, I blame the Government for allowing poor-performing corporations to believe that they were entitled to abuse taxpayer funds.

As usual, the problem is really the Government’s fault. I will say it one more time; this message is as true for Governments as it is for parents as it is for individuals:

            Rewarding bad behavior will only yield more bad behavior. You do not get to be surprised or outraged when it actually happens. 

It is NOT the government's job to guarantee that you have a job, healthcare, food, money, or housing. Rather, the government exists solely to keep you safe while you provide all of those things for yourself. In other words: the government’s job is to ensure an environment where anyone—from any economic background, of any color, of either gender, adhering to any creed, and holding any set of values—can fight for themselves without fear of hindrance or molestation.

I take the time to say this because, according to a new Fox News / Opinion Dynamics Poll:

• ·      68% of Americans think that it is the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have food.
• ·      66% think that it is the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care.
• ·      52% think that government has a duty to provide housing to all Americans.
• ·      51 % think that government has a duty to provide jobs to all Americans who want one.

Those numbers scare the living daylights out of me. And they should scare any given capitalist, as well.

Look at history; look at facts. Every time that a government has decided to try to “provide” something to its people, it has failed. There’s a reason that, save for China and Cuba, the world has sworn off communism. It doesn’t work. Look at the Soviet healthcare system: you’ve all seen it because it’s two aspirin. That’s all that the great “medicine for all, paid for by all” could afford. News alert to President Obama: “Spreading the wealth around” does not work.

Yes, I will concede that, in capitalism, some people must, from time to time, fail. Capitalism involves risk and effort. But there are two sides of the coin: if you must own your failures in full, then you also get to own your successes in full. It is those successes that America was built upon.

To quote President Washington, “Like fire, government is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.” If we start asking government to do things for us instead of us doing things for ourselves, then the government will ask something in return: funding.

To remind my readers: government is bankrupt. It’s true; the government has never spent a single dollar that it already had. Rather, that trillion-dollar spending bill that just plowed through congress will be funded by you through new, higher, and ever more ridiculous taxes. And, as much as it sounds like universal healthcare is a warm, compassionate thing for government to do; it is really a cold and foolhardy concept that calls for the government to play the role of Robin Hood, taking from everybody and redistributing money where government deems it more appropriate.

This also means that that “top 2%” that the President keeps saying will be getting a tax hike includes 85% of small business owners—anyone earning over $250,000. I hate to break this to you, Mr. President, but even if you raised their taxes from 35% to 100% (no, that’s not a typo), the government would still not have enough money to pay for your ludicrous spending projects.

Here’s the bottom line: government cannot give something to one person without stealing something from somebody else. Expecting government to provide for your family’s needs is not just illogical; it’s lazy and irrational. It is your job to provide for yourself and your family, nobody else’s. Government needs to step aside and get out of your way.

If Americans want to remain a free nation, then Americans need to shake this asinine sense of entitlement that has pervaded our collective psyche. Ours is a nation of the self-reliant. Let’s start acting like it.