A Fine Line Between Soft Tyranny and Hard Tyranny

Mark Tapscott sounds a grave warning about giving our government too much power. He argues that the progressive movement’s totalitarian temptation is becoming irresistible to some on the left. Take, for example, Thomas Freidman, who went as far as to write a column advocating totalitarianism here in the US. You know, as long as the despots are good people.  But what happens when citizens don’t obey the rulers?

Still, that this danger is real and growing becomes more obvious as public opposition grows to the president’s across-the-board campaign to turn Washington into the all-powerful, centralized behemoth that Woodrow Wilson and FDR could only dream about.

Consider: Nowhere does the Constitution grant Congress authority to require every American to buy a particular private service or product on pain of forfeiture of a significant portion of their wealth. Yet, every version of Obamacare currently being discussed in Congress requires just that.

Forcing all of us to buy officially approved health insurance is essential to a functioning government-run system. As Obama told Congress, “many of insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – cannot be achieved” without the individual mandate.

Why? Because the politicians and bureaucrats who will manage the government-run health care program know that, without the force of government behind them, they won’t be able to make the rest of us do what they tell us to do.

Once the power is granted, the question becomes how severe will the enforcement be. Fines will suffice, for Obamacare, for now. For Stalin, the first choice was usually the Gulag, or a bullet. It’s just a matter of degree.

But that is what government always does as it becomes more costly, intrusive and intolerant of dissent. As if to drive the point home, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a gag order this week telling all private companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program to shut up. Violators would face fines and jail time. Forget the First Amendment.

The gag order was issued after Humana Corp. sent a letter to its policyholders who participate in Medicare Advantage telling them the facts about Obamacare’s effect on the program. The companies were ordered “to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.”

The bureaucrats added this blunt threat: “Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions. ….”

Those, my friends, are the words of soft tyranny. How much longer before it becomes a hard tyranny? Read More

Think about it. How much longer do we have? Our Founders took great pains to try to prevent this from happening. They must be rolling in their graves.