What Obamacare will do to America

In the entry, “The End,” Aditya B. wrote:

Nothing we say or do will make the slightest difference anymore. We have lost. There is nothing left to conserve.This nation is now, formally, a Socialist state.

My nightmare has come true. In all seriousness, I am contemplating returning to Hindustan as there is no point grinding my fingers to the bone to support the twenty-million plus Mestizo invaders who will rush to take advantage of this system. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, I will never enjoy a decent middle class existence. Nor will I ever have the satisfaction of living in a proud, self-reliant nation.

In response, an Indian living in the West reminded him that America is still the freest country in the world.

To which Aditya replies:

ILW is absolutely right when he compares the U.S. with the Rest of the World. It is light years ahead of places like China and India and is likely to be so in the foreseeable future. For the foreseeable future, America is likely to be more prosperous that any other country, and there will be greater liberty in the land than anywhere else.

ILW surely knows what happens under Socialism as well, if not better, than I do. Obamacare is the final step towards Socialism. It has fundamentally transformed the relationship between citizen and state forever. And there is no going back.

I came to an America where I was fortunate enough to meet people who could unclog their drains, build a deck on their homes, fish, and filet the fish, toss it on the grill and have a party. They possessed firearms and maintained them carefully so that they could protect their person and property. In a word, they were proud, self-reliant people.

I have learned much from them. I can do a little handy-work around my flat. I can cook for myself. I know enough about firearms to ensure that, at the very least, I don’t hurt myself. I tried to emulate these people. I wanted to be as independent and as self-reliant as them. As strong.

Socialism turns the Sirkar (government) into the mai-baap (mother and father). With healthcare, that has been realized. The most direct impact will be in increased taxation which will make this country less competitive. Every job that can be outsourced, will be. This means greater pressure on the dole as there won’t be enough work to go around even if one wants to work. This means loss of self-reliance and greater dependence on the Sirkar.

Secondly, a vast bureaucracy will be created and staffed with mediocre and sub-mediocre personnel, mostly from ethnicities that bear historic grievances—real and imagined—against the dwindling historic majority. Not only will these people lack the basic competence for the job, they will go out of their way to make life difficult for those identified by the current “President” as “our enemies.” This is sure to happen as night follows day.

As a consequence of this provision, we will attract ever-growing numbers of third-world, low-IQ populations who, to the regime’s delight, will remain permanent wards of the state swelling the numbers of its permanent supporters.

Some on the dissident right argue that these changes have been foisted on an unwilling public. I submit that the public is fully complicit in this tyranny.

Consider this:

The self-reliant classes are shrinking. Less than fifty per cent of Americans pay income taxes. Do you think that they want to reduce the size of government? Do you think they will refuse any “free” goodies?

The middle classes enjoy playing the aristocrat. They like the availability of cheap labor to nanny their children, clean their homes and so on. They enjoy this state of affairs as relatively cheap prices of gas and the finest motorway system in the world makes it possible to live as far from this vast underclass as possible. This way, they believe, they enjoy the best of both worlds.

The Chamber of Commerce types love any measure that foists the costs of “cheap labor” upon the taxpayer while fattening their portfolios.

So, we are all equally guilty. Everyone believes that they are entitled to not just to the standard of living that was created in the post-war 1950s—a sui generis situation—but much, much more. And therefore, they will vote for any charlatan who promises the same.

Therefore, we are getting just what we deserve. We don’t know what the future holds except this much: American will increasingly resemble the effete populations of Europe. There will be major military cuts. Incompetent bureaucrats will avenge themselves on the white, and other successful, population.

The only people who will be thrive in this environment are the very rich and the poor as the government will cater exclusively to these groups. The middle class will be caught in a pincer move as it is slowly squeezed dry to finance this apparatus.

This is the source of my pessimism and rage. I don’t care about shopping malls and clubs and restaurants. I do care about a free and independent people who will slowly be turned into helpless, effete children. America is being robbed of its manhood.

This is why I would consider leaving. Even if it means returning to a basket-case nation where even the instant coffee is adulterated, I will be spared the spectacle of watching a once free and proud people become willing subjects of a servile state.

But then again, I love this country. I am not a turncoat. I don’t intend to leave at the first sign of trouble. I’m still young enough to wait and watch. Who knows, Lawrence, maybe this could be the beginning of the end. stranger things have happened. Maybe this is just what was needed to destroy four generations of Liberalism and consign this disgusting form of self-worship to the ash-heap of history.

We do live in interesting times. Makes me wish I had lived and died in dull and boring times.

- end of initial entry -

Robert B. writes:

I feel very much the same way—as if Aditya B had read my mind. I constantly remind people, who do not want to hear it, that there is no Great Cabal doing this to us. That “we” did it to ourselves. That “our” parents voted those into office who told them they were taking the first steps in this direction and that they willingly went along with it—every last bit of it. There were alternatives.

An Indian living in the West writes:

I can’t disagree with anything Aditya B. says. I have seen socialism in action in India and in Europe and I know exactly what effect it has on the people. In India, it turns men into slaves of the government (and the officials turn into little despots lording it over the populace). In Europe, we get this.

However, I have a little bit more hope for the future than Aditya does. And the reason is this: as Aditya correctly notes, more than half the population no longer pays tax. The size of the government’s spending continues to increase exponentially. America is going to have a fiscal crisis. This will happen after Japan and Europe have had theirs. But the time for that will surely come as there is no political will to reduce the size of government. Obama, if anything, is big government on steroids.

The end result is going to be continuous monetisation of American government debt. In fact, last year the Federal Reserve bought 2/3 of newly issued Federal debt with freshly printed money. The last time a major country tried this tactic was Germany circa early 1920s. We all know what happened there. [LA replies: If you mean that the hyperinflation of the early ’20s led to the rise of Hitler, that is not correct, though it is a very common misconception. Germany emerged from the hyperinflation and its economy greatly improved in the later 1920s. Hitler did not come to power until about eight years after the climax of the hyperinflation.] This grand experiment is being currently tried in America (and in Britain, Europe and Japan). It is going to end in tears. You will get a hyperinflationary crisis at some stage. The system will break down.

At the height of the crisis, there will be an opportunity for conservatives to dismantle the gargantuan apparatus of the nanny state. Life can begin anew. But to do this, they would need to be ready for it and they would need good intellectual leaders in their movement. America is still a predominantly middle class country. The arguments in favour of a return to the old values will resonate with a majority of the public once they have tasted the horrors of socialism run amok.

So that is where I still have hope. The liberal project is hurtling towards the cliff. Obama just pressed even harder at the accelerator peddle. The day of reckoning will arrive faster than even most pessimists on the Right believe. We are, at best, five years away from the Great American Fiscal Crisis. I know I will sound a little nuts when I say this. But the facts are there for anyone willing to see them. If you don’t believe me, check this out. And then make up your own mind.

LA replies:

You may be right. Then again, various prognosticators have been predicting imminent economic apocalypse for my entire adult life.

ILW writes:

You wrote:

If you mean that the hyperinflation of the early ’20s led to the rise of Hitler, that is not correct

No I didn’t mean the coming of Hitler. I meant the collapse of the currency. I am saying that if you keep printing money to pay off government debt, you get rampant inflation at a later date. May be not immediately but you will get it. There is no escaping it.

You may be right. Then again, various prognosticators have been predicting imminent economic apocalypse for my entire adult life.

True. But I have no idea what the earlier prognosticators were basing it on. The current situation is dire. I am not predicting an apocalypse. I am predicting a crisis. A crisis is not the end. A crisis is a time of hardship. That situation throws up the possibility of political reform.

So many countries have suffered currency collapses and hyperinflation but are still around. Indonesia is one prime example. There are so many in Latin America. I am not suggesting a Mad Max America. That belongs in the realms of fantasies. But what I am saying is that a crisis of this type has never occurred in America before. Americans have not, since the collapse of the Continental Dollar in the 1780s, experienced 40 percent annual inflation. That kind of event can separate the wheat from the chaff with searing clarity. And my hope is that some sensible men are able to make the case for a complete overhaul of the state so that such an event does not occur again. And the way to do it would be to cut the state in size and restore the values of the Republic.

Dave T. writes:

Saw the following comment of yours:

“You may be right. Then again, various prognosticators have been predicting imminent economic apocalypse for my entire adult life.”

It’s a fair point. Another factor contributing to the decline of the world economy in the near future is the fact that China and India are quickly running out of fresh water. It’s a huge under-reported story in the West that China has completely trashed their own aquifers that are closer to the surface and naturally replenish themselves via rainfall so that they are now relying on fossil aquifers in many places that don’t naturally replenish themselves and will be used up before too long. India is in a similarly dire situation in terms of its water resources (i.e. relying on fossil aquifers that won’t be around for much longer). Armed conflict in the Far East is bound to break out sometimes this century over just this issue. I can only imagine the effect this will have on the world economy when the ultra-cheap manufacturing hub of the planet is in turmoil over lack of water.

If the world economy doesn’t collapse due to political mismanagement, as many have wrongly predicted in the past, it will be brought to its knees eventually by these sorts of environmental issues in this century (it goes without saying that “climate change” will have nothing to do with it). Take it to the bank!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 29, 2012 10:00 AM | Send