by Rick Lowe
With the introduction of NHI we are witnessing more state control (paternalism) of our lives which will inevitably lead to further decline in our nations moral health.
Mark Steyn, in his treatise America Alone states it much better than I can:
...In Europe, the soft culture is so pervasive - state pensions, protected jobs, six weeks of paid vacation, lavish unemployment benefits if the thirty-five hour work week sounds too grueling - that the citizen is little more than a junkine on the state narcotic.
Faced with the perfect storm of swollen pension liabilities and collapsed birth rates, even Continental politicians recognize the need to wean their citizenry off some of these entitlements. But the citizens don't. What do they care if their country will be bankrupt in twenty years and extinct in seventy? Call me when I get back from the beach.
In 2006, the Economist reported on the growing tendency of the state to use its power to direct your life in socially beneficial ways - to coerce you into not smoking, eating healthily, etc - and concluded: "Its champions will say that soft paternalism should only be used for ends that are unarguably good: on the side of sobriety, prudence, and restraint. But private virtues such as these are as likely to wither as to flourish when public bodies take charge of them."
That's correct. The ends may be "unarguably good" but they lead to other ends that are unarguably bad. It's the case that in a general population some people will neglect their elderly parents and leave their children alone at home while they go off gallivanting. However, by making the government the guarantor of a comfortable old age and supervised day care, you don't end such fecklessness. Rather, by relieving the individual of the need to have "private virtues," you'll ensure that they wither away to the edges of society.
Amen to that!
And since I'm quoting, here's something from P.J. O'Rourke, one of my favourite writers, on "compulsive government charity" - something not unlike the National Health Insurance programme (NHI) now being proposed by the PLP:
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money— if a gun is held to his head.
