Fascunism

What's worse than both Fascism and Communism? Fascunism, that hideous two-headed offshoot of the most brutal ideologies in recent history. This insidious mix of corporatism and bureaucratic tyranny is the worst of all possible worlds, and if Hillary Clinton gets her way, it will rear it ugly heads via her health care proposal.

When dealing with an issue as emotional as health care (after all, who could disagree with Hillary Clinton when she tells us that we all deserve health insurance?) it is important to make clear distinctions between the means and the ends. While the ends may seem appealing or even necessary, the means that Madame Clinton proposes would be a catastrophe.

If we are going to force citizens to buy health insurance, which is a considerable leap away from liberty that we should soberly acknowledge before undertaking, there are two ways to do so.

The first way, which for the purposes of this discussion we can broadly call "communistic", is to compel citizens to contribute to a general fund, managed by the state, which will provide a service to the nation as a whole. This is how the Pentagon is run, for example. I think there is a very compelling argument that we are long overdue for a similar approach to health care.

When we are compiling a list of justifiable coercions, and it should be a very short list, we must accept the communist approach as the only valid one, since the beneficiary of the coercion, the government, at least theoretically represents the society as a whole.

In other words, if we're going to make sure everyone has health care, it must be administered through taxes paid to the federal government, as that is the only entity in America that represents everyone.

The second approach, the fascist approach, coerces the citizens to contribute not to the "commune", represented by the government, but to private corporations. If everything is privatized, the citizens must do business with said corporations. With fascism, however, at least the citizen can theoretically choose not to buy whatever product or service the corporations are selling.

With the Clinton approach, we have a two headed beast. As with communism, the government assumes the authority to coerce citizens to contribute wealth to the state. Unlike, communism, however, Senator Clinton's approach uses the coercion of the state to benefit not the state itself, the embodiment of the "commune", but private corporations. This is the genesis of the two-headed beast.

The state, in Hillary Clinton's world, should have the authority to force citizens to buy things from private corporations. What happened to liberty? What happened to the common good? Both will be extinguished, with no residual benefit. Except, of course, to the corporations.

What power in the Constitution or anywhere else in the universe would authorize Hillary Clinton to tell me that I have to buy something from a private corporation, and that if I choose not to, the federal government will garnish my wages?

Say I take home 2000 dollars a month. Say after rent, utilities, and food, my discretionary income is 700 dollars per month. Say Hillary Clinton decides that I can "afford" to buy a 200 per month health insurance plan. Say I don't want to. Say I decide that, all due respect to Hillary Clinton, I can NOT afford what she says I can. Well, then, according to her plan, she has the authority to take that money directly from my paychecks.

This is dictatorship. This is slavery. And that is not hyperbole. If any government tells its citizens that they are criminals if they do not buy certain goods or services from private corporations, why bother having a government? Why not just have Wal-Mart run the country? They'd probably do a better job, anyway.

As if the black hole for liberty that this represents were not enough, let's try a simple though exercise: Say Hillary Clinton who, coincidentally I'm sure, has received far more money from HMO's and pharmaceutical companies than any other candidate, achieves her goal, and the coercive power of the federal government is deputized to guarantee that all citizens must buy private insurance, what do you suppose will happen to the price of said insurance?

If the most powerful physical and economic force ever (the American federal government) forces the richest group of people ever (the American people) to buy something, say....eggs, from private companies, what do you suppose would happen to the price of eggs? Think it would go up? If it there was a fine for not buying eggs, if people were forced by the state to buy eggs, think the egg people might bump the price up? Just a bit? Maybe?

This may sound increasingly cranky and old-fashioned, but liberty means something. Any honest supporter of Hillary's health care plan can not also be an ardent defender of liberty. The two are mutually exclusive.

Fascunism will not help sick people. It will create a new sickness all its own. When tyranny comes to the United States, it will come wrapped in the American flag. Popping pills. With a stethescope around its neck.