The Economist's Cookbook

So I'm sitting in my house last night, packing to come back to school, folding clothes, all that kind of good stuff and my dad walks in. The dialogue is paraphrased:

Dad: "So I think I know why the liberals want nationalized health care."
Jon: "Really? Aside from the fact that it allows them to regulate who gets what kind of care?"
Dad: "Beyond that, think bigger."
Jon: "Ummm, right, just tell me."
Dad: "If Health care is a 'right' as some people want to claim that it is and government must then provide it on a national scale, what is the implicit assumption?"
Jon: "They have to be able to ... oh ... "
Dad: "Exactly, if they are the provider of that good then they have to be able to control costs in some way. Now what does that mean for health care?"
Jon: "It means that they can ban anything that they deem 'unhealthy' whatever that may be."
Dad: "Yes but more than that, it means that they can outlaw things they determine to be too risky or unhealthy, they can tell you where to live, what to eat, how to live..."
Jon: "...where you can go and where you can't..."
Dad: "Exactly, it opens the door for huge strides in government control over the lives of the people in this country."
Jon: "You mean sheeple."
Dad: "Yeah, that term actually fits quite nicely right there."
... I love my dad, he's turning into a good Libertarian...
Yes, please, call me an alarmist. (keep in mind that the Democrats called the Republicans who opposed the implementation of the 16th amendment to the constitution, "alarmists and fear- mongers") For those of you that don't know what the 16th Amendment is....
The Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Yep income taxes, which were promised to be 1% and be for the war effort, and BE SHORT TERM. Now, we (the average American) is working 3 months out of the year just to pay their FEDERAL income taxes. So you can call me an alarmist all you want, but there is precedent here for this kind of Leviathan-like government expansion.

So yes, vote for Nationalized Health care. It'll probably turn out like the Public school system in America. That is to say that it will be a mess of positively biblical proportions.

Now before some person gets on here and starts the typical "What about the kid who has cancer and their parents can't afford the treatment..." line of argument, let me forestall that by saying that I am not talking in anyway about what a person deserves, as that has an icky moral connotation that I dislike. Fine, we can treat all of the children in America for cancer, if you want to give up your rights to: live where you want, go where you want, eat what you want, drink what you want, etc.

On an ending note, what happens when the government decides that certain modes of thought are "unhealthy"? We won't be allowed to think what we want anymore.

The roads to Hell and Tyranny are paved with "good intentions".

-Jon