Welcome to the Servile State

Well they did it. Though I, for one, am not surprised. Abuse of power is addicting and Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi (to name but a few) don't care one whit for the Constitution or the wishes of the people they serve. They care about consolidation of power. And they are determined to have it. One way or another.

So, Harry Reid finally succeeded in buying his sixty Democrat votes for the Health Care bill that a majority of Americans do not support. According to Rasmussen: "Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters are now against the health care plan working its way through Congress, while just 40% support it. Perhaps more significantly, 46% now Strongly Oppose the plan, compared to 19% who Strongly Favor it." We don't want it but they are going to establish it anyway. Why? Certainly not even they believe care will improve or premiums will come down. If they did they would implement the bill immediately instead of waiting till well after the next Presidential election. No, if history is any guide it is more likely because they simply don't like us having all that freedom and indpendence. Government's power increases the greater the monopoly it has over our lives.

In his 1913 book, The Servile State, Hilaire Belloc writes, "...the effect of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters--to wit, the Servile State." (xiv)

Welcome to the Servile State courtesy of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. The new United States of America where health care is a right to be managed and dictated by a strong centralized government. Everything our Founders sought to avoid. Everything our soldiers since the Revolutionary War have fought to oppose.

F.A. Hayek penned the definitive treatise on political philosophy and economics in England in the spring of 1944, The Road to Serfdom. Hayek believed that the collectivist ideas of his peers to empower government, increasing its economic control would not lead to utopia as promised by the proponents rather, inevitably would lead to totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany. As a witness to the tyranny of the Nazi's (Hayek was Austrian and did not return to Austria after the Anschluss), Hayek saw the effects of collectivism first hand.

In 1956 writing of the socialist government established six years before in England (his new home), he wrote: "...the most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people." He goes on to explain that the change is slow--perhaps two generations before the alteration in character is noted. But, he emphasizes, the erosion will take place if government control is not tempered.

"The important point is that the political ideals of a people and its attitude toward authority are as much the effect as the cause of the political institutions under which it lives. This means, among other things, that even a strong tradition of political liberty is no safeguard if the danger is precisely that new institutions and policies will gradually undermine and destroy that spirit (emphasis mine)." (xxxix)

Hayek argues that the change need not be permanent if the people will throw out the party enslaving them and reverse course. So there is hope for us, too. If we rise to the challenge. If we regain our footing. If we remember what we are all about. If we value our unique place in history and teach the next generation the joy and empowerment of liberty, there is hope.

As Hayek reminds us, "Nobody saw more clearly than De Toqueville that democracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism" (29). And he quotes De Tocqueville on the subject of individual freedom: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restrict it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere member. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." (emphasis mine)

So let us throw out the party of tyranny and collectivism. Let us stand for the individual and our strong tradition of individual liberty. Let us not allow them destroy our spirit or the America our Founders gave us. Not slip into the Servile State this Administration is so diligently pursuing.

In short, let us throw the bums out; and their Servile State along with them.