When the government forces you to buy a product or service, such as health insurance, and makes you pay a fine to the government if you don’t, it’s tyranny. When the government forces you to buy a product or service, such as health insurance, and makes you pay a fine to a health insurance company if you don’t, it’s called fascism.
The first is Obamacare I. The second is Obamacare II, the sequel.
That’s what Paul Ryan and the Republicans are offering us: economic fascism. Fascism means socialism at a profit. It’s no better than Obama’s socialism, and in one sense it’s more sinister, manipulative and dishonest. It’s the kind of thing that turns decent people against capitalism, because they think this is what capitalism and free markets are. It’s not. Capitalism and free markets refer to a social system where no coercion is involved. Everything is voluntary. Only force and fraud are against the law. Under capitalism and free markets, you don’t have a government regulating private companies against their wishes and then rewarding compliant companies with perks and subsidies.
Economic fascism is what gave us “the swamp.” These Republicans are part of the swamp. It’s easy to see why. However, it’s deeper than that. We are all part of the swamp too – unless or until we stop authorizing government to give us something for nothing.
“Don’t buy my health insurance. I will take care of medical care myself. Don’t force anyone else to pay for it. I will take care of it. And if I can’t, and even if I have to go without, or rely on charity—so be it.” Until or unless we adopt this attitude, not just with health care but with everything, we’ll never be free. And there will always be a rational incentive for politicians to exploit us, because we need them to help us get something for nothing.
Only a person who truly does not feel owed something for nothing has any right to complain about a swamp. Because if you think you’re entitled to so much as one dollar of another’s wealth, regardless of how wealthy that person is, then you’re part of the problem, and part of the swamp.
I don’t sense most Americans are ready to hear this. Not even the millions who voted for Donald Trump. When and if they ever are, we’ll be on our way to liberty and freedom. But not a moment sooner. It’s a psychological paradox, but it’s still the truth: Only when you don’t feel entitled to the unearned are you truly independent, and truly free. Only when you relinquish that chip on your shoulder – “That other guy got breaks I didn’t, and it’s time I get mine” – will you ever enjoy the uninhibited rapture of living as a free and sovereign individual.
What is “the swamp” we’re supposed to be draining, anyway? The swamp is the place where other people’s money goes. It’s the place where we designate people to take that ill-gotten money—attained via coercion—and give it to us through a complex means of rationalizations, evasions, false narratives and fraudulent claims.
Until we grasp that the “swamp” is what each and every one of us have created, there’s very little any of us can do to drain it.
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