The essence of the issue:
There are three sociopolitically sacred relationships:
- husband/wife
- clergy/parishioner
- doctor/patient
Any government which attempts to insert itself into the middle of one (or more) of those relationships is an oppressive totalitarian dictatorship. Lacking a good linguistic way to express this in common English, citizens object by likening attempts to institute such dictatorial governance with major historical instances thereof - hence the flaming rhetoric being applied and decried.
Interesting point, ctdonath2.
One of the things I notice is that the first two of your “sacred three” relationships are religious in nature. Marriage has historically been intrinsically religious, “wed in the sight of God” - and the idea of the “civil ceremony” is quite recent in human history.
I think what many people see is a loss of transcendence that leads to and feeds to government interference in all three relationships.
Modern Europe, which has socialized health care, is clearly not “Nazi.” They have learned JUST enough about their dives into past socialism to prevent another similar dive (at least for the time being). But they have also divorced themselves from religion.
Interestingly, Germany was the LEAST religious country in Europe prior even to World War I. And that religious vacuum was filled with something else - something which turned out to be terrible.
Ultimately, when we see a government takeover of something so personal as health care and end of life issues, it is VERY appropriate to question what that system is based on, and what it may very well (all protests aside) lead to.
The Judeo-Christian values life, free will, and conscience. Very few other systems of thought can sustain these values. That’s why every single socialist utopia has not only failed, but become monstrous.