It’s really all over for America now.
Of course, it’s been coming on for a long time, as congress and the president usurped greater and great powers not authorized in the constitution, but now the constitution has been thoroughly and irremediably shredded.
To begin with, the government can now force Americans to purchase anything it deems they should.
It can also force Americans into any behaviors it feels warranted.
Like that steak?
Sorry, it threatens your heart.
Like sugar?
Sorry, too much diabetes.
And so on.
Once the principle has been established, anything and everything will be in play.
Sorry, your firearms pose a health hazard.
An end run around the Second Amendment will be a snap.
As in Massachusetts, there will be no need for any outright prohibition; firearms will simlly be declared a health hazard, and banned without the passage of any law or even the need to consider the matter in congress.
This is tantamount to a authorizing a dictatorship, which must soon follow.
Second, of course, the budget - already bloated to the point of scant possibility of recovery - has now been placed beyond all capacity to manage, for this reason: this healthcare nonsense, as has been proven beyond all doubt in Massachusetts, will very soon bloat far beyond the power of anyone to pay for it.
If I’m sick, I can decide whether my personal budget warrants a trip to the hospital, and decide accordingly.
Now, of course, everyone will check into the emergency room for a hangnail.
Hey, why not - Uncle Sam’s picking up the tab!
The health establishment will be swamped, and it’ll take a major wait to get an operation for something truly important, such as heart problems.
This has already been proven the cause in Britain.
This bloating will, as night follows day, force the government to raise taxes far beyond the point of socialism or go broke.
Morever, it’s historically proven that when a government - any government - is faced with bills it cannot hope to pay, it adulterates the currency to the point it’s meaningless.
That means that the dollar you now hold, and have been saving for retirement, will be worthless in a few years.
That will make savings impossible, and, without savings, there will be nothing available for infrastructure repair, investment, or improvement down the road.
And with countless Americans bankrupted by high taxes, runaway inflation, and further government giveaways, even as the economy stagnates even further and infrastructure falls apart, the government can only become more and more bloated as it seeks to enact countless additional programs to alleviate problems it, itself, has created.
The socialism will become more and more intrusive, until the point is reached that the government becomes a communist monster and can - and will - tell everyone what to do, how to do it, and what not to do, or face economic sanctions and/or imprisonment.
Ironic that after spending so much national treasure and spilling the blood of so many national heroes, communism is enacted without a whisper.
Obama has finally achieved what he sought all along - the utter destruction of the American nation and the American way of life.
The only upside is that it makes us Old Fogeys happy to be nearing death.
For the younger set, on the other hand, freedom, liberty, and the American national way of life is now all over except the mopping up.
It was pretty much over for freedom after the passage of the income tax amendment in 1913, in which Uncle Sam was now privy and partner to every dollar you earn.
Right after that they no longer needed the tax revenue from alcohol sales (made up about 45% of total federal receipts at the time), they passed an amendment outlawing alcohol in 1920, coincidentally the same year they expanded the right to vote to women.
This today is just nationalization of the health care industry at gunpoint, small potatoes compared to the extortion that goes on via the IRS and the DC Apparatus.
And yet people on this forum continue to believe that DC will provide a solution, if only the right people are in office.
Never happen, because Washington is the problem, never the solution (both parties).
They just fight over who gets to control the money extorted from the suckers outside the Beltway.