Decius wrote:
Why is it that people insist on equating a national healthcare system with "plunging the country into socialism."

Hmm... because that's exactly what it is?

Decius wrote:
Oh, please. Most western countries have a national healthcare system...

Yes, and they're embracing socialism by doing so. It's nothing to be proud of (well, not for anyone who believes in capitalism, freedom, and individual responsibility).

Decius wrote:
But lets focus on where you took this... Are there any tax supported government services that you support. What makes them different than tax supported government services that inevitably lead us to despotism? What are you willing to "give up control over you life" for?

If by "government services," you mean "social programs," I don't support any of them, not even public schools. I'm not an anarchist, and I don't believe that government is bad, so long as it is limited in both size and scope. I have no desire to live in a nanny state.

Our federal and state constitutions should exist to establish government and protect us from government by limiting government. Laws should exist to protect us from each other (murder, rape, fraud), not from ourselves (mandatory motorcycle helmets, gambling bans, fatty food bans, Social Security). Government should exist to protect our rights, enforce the laws, defend the borders, regulate industries, build roads and courthouses, etc.

Government should not exist to micromanage our daily lives by planning for our retirement, ensuring that we exercise and maintain a proper diet, ensuring that we wear scarves when it's cold out, requiring that we go to sleep at a decent hour, or providing medicine when we're sick. Those are things we should be doing in the process of living our lives, and government should get out of our way, because 1) constitutionally, it's not government's place (more often than not), and 2) we, as individuals and private organizations, can do those things better than government.

Am I my brother's keeper? That's a question each of us has to answer from time to time, and I think each citizen should be allowed to choose his own answer. I don't think that I have any business answering that question for you or anyone else. Without that freedom to choose, charity cannot exist. Socialists, on the other hand, want the government to answer that question for all of us, in the affirmative.

RE: FIVE CONSERVATIVE MYTHS