Worry Worry!

Last week, my inbox contained an e-mail warning that the Democrats have a plan, and that they are going to secretly shove Obama's healthcare "reform" plan down everyone's throats, with no further scrutiny or feedback allowed.

I replied:

There have been plenty of pieces of legislation that have been "confirmed" by political watchdogs; this or that piece it going to be "hurried through and passed without public scrutiny" . . . And more times than not, this doesn't happen as anyone planned or predicted. If there is a big public outcry, or if some well-connected political groups decided to lobby against the plan, or if some other priority pops up unexpectedly, ... there are dozens of scenarios where the predicted "confirmed" plan doesn't pan out.

I clearly remember many of these; Hillary care is one of the best examples. It was a done deal, supposedly. But Clinton was overestimating his popularity and his supposed "mandate". Obama is doing the same thing; he, along with his fellow dems in Congress, are overreaching and overestimating their "mandate" and their popularity. In the end, after all the hoopla and scare stories from the anti-Clinton camp, Hillary Care got shot down in flames. This health plan won't get shot down, but it will get watered down, a lot.

These Authoritarian Sociopaths (a.k.a., "congress-critters") care mainly about one thing: keeping their job and their political career. Moving up a notch or grabbing more power is secondary to them. That can wait. If they see their funding sources (public and private) wavering, they will run for the nearest exit. They have been watering this plan down and changing it for a long time now, and some version will get passed, but not the huge over-haul that is feared. The Daily Show, despite it's leftist-leaning bias, is very good at showing clips of Obama speeches from a few years ago, then from his campaign, then from a few months ago, and then from this week; the series of clips shows how the plan is watered down and changed as the political winds shift. The weaving and waffling is never-ending in DC.

Of course, I could be wrong as well. All of this is like the endless long analysis before a football game - there's plenty of truth and intelligence in the football announcers' analysis. But at the end of the game, it's usually "who came closest" in their prediction, not "who predicted everything". The exact predictions rarely come true, unless the prediction are suitable vague and broadly stated. Political football is way more complex than football. Historically, what almost always happens is this: the politicians try to shove through a 100% socialist plan, and they end up having to water it down to a 20% socialist plan. And socialism takes another small step forward.

I read a great book about this called "Crisis and Leviathon" by Robert Higgs. He shows how each war or depression creates a public outcry for the government to "save us". And then, a bunch of new laws and programs are put into effect to "save" us from the crisis, real or imagined, planned or natural. The government power over us is ratcheted up several notches. When the crisis cools off naturally, the government pats itself on the back and proclaims itself the hero. And then the emergency programs are cut back, but not eliminated. So, there is a ratchet effect; 3 notches up, 1 back down, 3 notches up, 1 back down. Higgs shows this in his book very thoroughly. Almost every nasty government program that is operating today was started because of some impending crisis; the income tax started during the so-called Civil War, the welfare state started during the Great Depression, Foreign Aid ramped up during the Cold War, the so-called "Patriot Act" was enacted after 9/11, ... and so on.

This is the way it almost always has worked. That's why I don't worry and stress-out over every small step that the government is taking. The big picture is what needs to be worried about. And the big picture is the only picture that shows what needs to be done in the long run. Small, defensive moves against every "hit" from big-government just gets us playing "their game". I refuse to play their game, because it does nothing to stop the game. You stop one piece of legislation, they just come up with something else, and then they sneak that first piece back in under a different name, or as an amendment to some unrelated bill. No progress is made playing this type of defense.

The revolution has to be in people's minds. That's all there is to the big picture. Everything else is just playing their game, and playing nothing but defense; begging our masters not to whip us too harshly.