Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Seraphic Secret On Utopianism and Big Government

From Richard Avrech at Seraphic Secret, an insightful essay on utopianism versus reality and Big Government statism versus capitalism that appears as part of a post on the Health Care bill. He captures in a few paragraphs what I struggle in far more to say:

Seraphic Secret believes in the power of the individual, the power of free markets to effect positive results for a majority of the people.

There is no such thing as a solution for everybody.

That is called utopia and utopian models always end in tyranny if not outright genocide.

Seraphic Secret strongly believes in religious charities such as The Jewish Health Care Foundation of Los Angeles.

Charities flourish when government is least intrusive. But when government assumes control of private initiative charity declines because high taxes drain wallets and people assume that, y'know, the government is taking care of everything.

Remember when computers and other innovative electronics cost the earth? Private industry and competition drove prices down and quality up. The same free market model should and could be used for health care reform.

But Obama and the Democrats have no faith in free markets, no faith in a free American citizenry.

Obama and the Democrats believe in big government, they believe in, well, themselves—a ruling elite.

But big government does not innovate.

Big government does not create new jobs or new markets.

Big government is a cumbersome beast that is concerned, primarily, with maintaining and expanding its own power.

And Big government is the enemy of freedom and decency. Because when you relinquish control of your life to government, you relinquish free choice, you give up on the American dream.

And that is the plague called socialism/communism/collectivism, recast by modern liberals as, ahem, social justice.

You—yes you—are about to sink into a world of new taxes and a grim swamp of government health care.

G-d help us.

Do read Robert's entire post. Robert's essay is a good compliment to one of my favorite Thomas Sowell essays: The Prejudices Of The Elite. If you don't already read Seraphic Secret on a daily basis, I would highly recommend you start doing so.

1 comment:

Robert J. Avrech said...

Thanks so much for the kind words and the link. Greatly honored as I admire your blog as one of the most articulate voices of common sense Conservatism in the known universe.

A Merry Christmas to you and yours.