Obamaism, Liberalism: Big Bullies
It’s not just that Obama is a bully, however. It’s that Big Government and socialist policies are, by their very nature, bullying policies. They require compulsion. They are mandates, not protections.
by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
President Barack Obama is a “bully” for trying to shove his healthcare reform law down Americans’ throats and for trying to intimidate the Supreme Court into upholding the law, says staunch conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Obama, with his inexperience, wants to “force people to buy things they don’t want” through Obamacare, DeMint said at a town hall meeting in Rock Hill, S.C., the Rock Hill Herald reports.
Fair criticism? Absolutely.
It’s not just that Obama is a bully, however. It’s that Big Government and socialist policies are, by their very nature, bullying policies. They require compulsion. They are mandates, not protections. This is something advocates of liberal Obamaism and ObamaCare willfully refuse to understand. Participating in the requirements of ObamaCare is not an option, any more than participating in the programs of Medicare and Social Security are not, and never will be, an option.
Government social “welfare” programs require force, plain and simple. They have been sold, for decades now, as reasonable policies befitting a free people. “Retirement guarantees for the elderly. Health care for the elderly.” Who could argue with that? The problem is, they’re forced. And if they’re so universally beneficial, why do they have to be forced in the first place?
People don’t have to be forced to buy gasoline. People don’t have to be forced to purchase computers, iPhones, iPads or high-definition television sets. Not everybody buys these things, but most people voluntarily choose to do so, because they bring a lot of value and benefit. People will work and find money in their budgets to pay for these things. Shouldn’t they be willing to work and pay money for their medical care and insurance? Imagine even a Republican politician making this point. He’d be political toast, forever. Yet it’s still the truth, and people know it.
Liberals don’t have the confidence to let their ideas compete in the marketplace of ideas. They hate the marketplace because it implies profit, competition and business (even though the most prominent liberals are millionaires and billionaires—go figure!). But what liberals hate most of all, it seems, is the idea of anything (outside of sex and abortion) being remotely voluntary. Freedom of choice, in economic contexts, makes them crazy. That’s why you can’t have a rational discussion with most liberals, even if in other contexts they’re perfectly sane, stable and reasonable.
The problem with the liberal mentality is that it’s based on neurotic and irrational fear. I’m not saying that people like Obama and Nancy Pelosi are fearful. They don’t seem afraid of anything, because they’re confident that their use of force will always get them what they want. But these liberal politicians play upon the fear of people. “I might not have my health care. I must have someone guarantee it for me.” It’s true that health care is important. But so is a roof over your head. So is food. So is fuel for your automobile, and your heat. Nobody guarantees these things for you, free of charge. They’re mostly left to the workings of a free market, driven both by profit for producers and the ingenuity and hard work of private businesses.
Why not the same for health care?
No answer is ever given. And if we can’t count on the free market to deliver these things, then why don’t we have the equivalent of Medicare and ObamaCare for everything else, including groceries? And don’t reply, “We already have food stamps.” ObamaCare is not the equivalent of a food stamps program. ObamaCare is a literal takeover of everything related to medicine. It makes it functionally impossible for a free market to function, either in health insurance or health care. It passive-aggressively and cynically makes it so impossible that within a certain period of time, everyone or almost everyone will be on the equivalent of Medicaid for health care. It all but requires doctors to work under Medicare and Medicaid rules, in deference to the government and not necessarily to the patient.
Fear of a free market is what got us ObamaCare. But what about the reasonable fears the new regime of socialized medicine is going to create? Waiting lists, waiting lines, fights in Congress over the proper age to let people die, by government directive. It’s all coming. It has to, because that’s what socialism brings. Like any control freak, liberalism takes care of you, but at the price of your freedom. Americans will apparently have to learn this the hard way.
The president and his administration “believe Americans are stupid,” Senator DeMint said.
I don’t disagree, but I’d put it a different way. The president and his administration are counting on Americans to either be indifferent, or afraid. Those who are afraid actively support ObamaCare. Those who are indifferent, in the sense of thinking, “Oh, they’ll just have to figure it out in Washington, it’s over my head,” are in effect supporting it. Together, these two groups make up a majority. This is why America is in such trouble. It’s the majority of the American people themselves who created the problem … and who ARE the problem. Only the majority of Americans can fix this problem, by fixing their thinking and correcting their errors and evasions.
GOP Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina says: “What is amazing is what a bully President Obama has suddenly become.”
Suddenly? I don’t think so. He’s been like this his whole time in office. But bullying, as I said, is the nature of liberalism and socialism. Liberals are nothing more than fear-driven, bullying control freaks. They want to impose their will on everyone and everything. They talk a good game about “tolerance” and “diversity,” but the context in which they’re willing to honor these ideas is minimal and marginal. When it comes to the basics of the economy and human civilization in a mostly free country as generations of Americans have known it, they want, as Obama puts it, “transformation.” This means government control, not only of health care, but of everything they can get their hands on.
Dr. Hurd has a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Psychology, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA, November 1991. Degree awarded With Distinction. Master’s of Social Work (M.S.W.), Clinical, The University of Maryland at Baltimore, May 1988. Bachelor’s of Arts (B.A.), Psychology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, May 1985. Distinguished Psychology Student Award, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude. Dr. Hurd blogs at DrHurd.com
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