Socialized Medicine Means Fewer Options

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - Britain unveiled plans to tackle an "obesity time bomb" on Monday, banning TV and online adverts for junk food before 9.00 p.m., ending "buy one get one free" deals on such foods and putting calories on menus.

"Losing weight is hard but with some small changes we can all feel fitter and healthier," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.

"If we all do our bit, we can reduce our health risks and protect ourselves against Coronavirus – as well as taking pressure off the NHS (National Health Service)."

This is the we-know-better-than-you lifestyle endured by all poor souls forced to rely on a government monopoly for their health care. Decisions aren’t your own - not if they can possibly impact the cost curve of medical health care budgets. When health care is an arm of the government, then health care becomes, by definition, a political endeavor, or at the very least, colored with the tint of political exigency.

This is axiomatic, and easily discerned by even casual observers. Socialized medicine transfers decision-making to people who may act on motivations other than the best interest of the patient. The necessity of budgeting, allocation of scarce resources and the ever-present looming shadow of the social engineers seeking to deploy the practice of medicine as a tool with which to carve society into a more Utopian shape, all come to bear on the direct quality of care delivered to the patient.

Health care is an expensive proposition, even when managed with competence and efficiency, but any activity commanding such an eye-popping portion of the public treasury becomes a thing apart due to the vast scale alone.

Fortunes are made, and careers and dynasties built within these structures, ostensibly created to serve the people, but inevitably morphing into vehicles for the pursuit of agendas - all too often at the expense of those who are left lacking while the industry busies itself with something else.

Time and again, the NHS has been measured by circumstances and found wanting. Tragic maltreatment of patients is not an uncommon occurrence, and the response of the NHS is reflexive - another study, another commission, another review, all of which conclude with a well-written paper laying the blame at the feet of citizens unwilling to part with nearly ALL of their incomes through taxation. It’s always a funding issue, never an issue of fundamental error in design.

Occasionally the inherent inadequacies of the system erupt, like terrible acne marching determinedly across a teenager’s face, so obvious one would be embarrassed for pretending not to see it. The plight of the children sacrificed on the altar of bureaucratic hubris - Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans and countless others. Those two children were facing terrible, life-threatening disorders who, despite numerous alternatives for treatment, were not permitted to pursue any of them, lest these alternatives succeed, and prove NHS doctors wrong.

The bureaucracy cannot brook disobedience. This is the inherent weakness of government-controlled enterprises - having promised to solve everything from climate change to bad breath if only given sufficient funding and control, the people from whom the bureaucracy extracts confiscatory taxes must never lose faith in the efficacy of their government monopolies, for fear a lack of confidence will lead to a revolt against ever increasing tax demands.

Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans had to die, and their grief-stricken parents forced to swallow their loss privately, silently, under threat of suit. Don’t speak of it to reporters. Don’t dwell on it, it’ll only bring about dissatisfaction with your government, and Lord knows, your government isn’t going to change.

These utilitarian principles are the best government can offer. Unlike individuals, who are capable of empathy and remorse, governments are mere vessels of power, raw and undeniable power.

It strikes me as morbidly funny, the same ideological crew that pledges their lives, fortunes and sacred honor (if they had any!) to the defense of their most Holy Sacrament of “Choice,” are the greatest cheerleaders for a system that robs all but the barest few of any choices at all.

This is the dirty, squalid underbelly of all collectivism - the usurpation of choice by the anointed, because, well…they’re smarter than you, and far better equipped to live their own lives AND yours, and don’t you dare question that. What are you, some kind of racist, white supremacist, overprivileged hate monger? Doesn’t matter. You will be treated as one anyway.

When the concept of a higher power is devolved from an immortal Deity to a grubby, grasping government, truth is a poison and lies are salvation. This isn’t hard. Elementary stuff really, the idea of mankind as unique and precious, deserving of self-determination, simply because they draw breath from the same air as everyone else.

That’s the only prerequisite. Everything else has been laid upon us by those seeking control or advantage, seeking to become the arbiters of our inherent value, declaring themselves the rightful judges of what is, and what ought to be.

And, the worst offenders are the same who incessantly hector the rest of us, chiding and condemning us for not aligning perfectly with their idea of what a person ought to be, and what a person ought to think, feel and do. Some leave it there, merely disapproving of their ideological opposites, casting scornful glances, but nothing more.

Others, and these increasingly form the larger part, would see our “diversity” bludgeoned out of us. They tell us their abuses of power are only meant to sweep away the obstacles to harmony. They crow about the glories of a homogeneity of belief, a shared purpose, even if that can only be achieved by our forced reeducation.

Truthfully, they have no interest in cohesion, and cannot fathom the idea of welcoming their sworn enemies as friends and equals. When they say “Justice,” they mean subjugation. When they say “Peace,” they mean the absence of opposition to their rule. When they say “Equity,” they really mean, “getting even.”

There is no common ground between the Leftist and the classic liberal, more popularly known today as a Conservative. We can’t compromise because there exists no place where both can safely meet - one or the other must occupy the space. We are oil and water, and any attempted mix will soon separate.

Compromise can only occur when both parties seek the same ends, and is utterly impossible when one side will accept nothing less than total victory. Compromising with an opponent who seeks the end of you and yours isn’t compromise. It’s slow-motion surrender.

What shall we say to the modern Marxists? What ought we be willing to forfeit in return for peace? They have demanded our livelihoods, and our lives. We are to them, irretrievably broken, genetically unfit by dint of our inborn “privilege.” There is no seat at the table for us, only an opportunity to be abused and discarded.

Listen to their words. Read their writings. They boldly demand our removal from the earth. For the sins of our skin color, we must pay with our lives. Where can we compromise in that? Perhaps we can strike a bargain. They can kill us, but they must do it slowly, and at a cost that doesn’t add to the national debt.

Socialism is NOT the transfer of wealth, it’s the transfer of choice. Our choices, transferred to them, never to return.