A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name...

In the July 24, 2009, Star-Ledger Reader Forum, the following letter-to-the-editor was published.

Health plan isn't socialism

The claim by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele that President Obama's health care plan is socialism demonstrates that Republicans have never heard of a dictionary. A quick read shows that his definition does not fit the word.

Socialized medicine requires all physicians, nurses and anyone else in health care to be government employees, which is the case in Canada and Great Britain, but is not part of the president's proposal.

Most interesting is the fact Republicans never mention that the United States has a true socialized medicine program. It is well-respected, efficient and effective. Its called the Veterans Administration.

Marvin Schwalb, Livingston

The claim by Marvin Schwalb that Obamacare isn’t socialism ignores socialism's essential nature. Technical definitions aside, socialism is a form of collectivism, the doctrine that holds that the standard of value is the group, to which the individual is subordinate and can be sacrificed on any group whim, as represented by the state. Communism, Nazism, welfare statism, fascism, democracy, and socialism are all manifestations of collectivism. The sacrifice of individual rights under a statist regime is the political essence of collectivism, and that is exactly the nature of Obama’s health care plan.

But to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. That is why the champions of socialized medicine run from the socialist label as from the plague.

As the great Aristotle taught us; A is A. And socialism is socialism. We are headed toward totalitarian socialism in America, and have been for the past century. Under Obama, the trend is accelerating. But he is an empty suit, simply cashing in on the trend…the collectivists preferred method of American socialization…the back door of fascism. Step by step, through programs such as the Veterans Administration, Medicare, a myriad of government controls and taxes, etc., total government control of medicine (and, in fact, the entire economy) is and has been advancing in America…long before Bush-Obama socialism appeared on the American scene.

The fascist method was explained by a former leader of a major Western nation some time ago:

“The party is all-embracing…” said Adolf Hitler upon taking power, “Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good…This is Socialism- not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape. Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over all, regardless of whether they are owners or workers…Our Socialism goes far deeper…[the people] have entered a new relation…What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.” (From Herman Rauschning’s The Voice of Destruction, as quoted in The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff, page 231-232. Emphasis added.)

We will maintain our illusion of privacy, while the state, through the medical bureaucracy, exercises total control over the medical and business decisions of patients, insurers, and providers alike. Doctors won’t be technical employees of the state (the communist brand of collectivism), at least not initially. But, fascism is socialism…and so is Obamacare…whether Mr. Schwalb, President Obama, or Bill O’Reilly want to call it that or not. Obamacare will "range men firmly within a [health care] discipline they cannot escape.” The medical bureaucracy will be “all-embracing”, and the people will be socialized…sooner (if the democrats have their way) or later (if the current GOP has its way).

The only antipode to collectivism/socialism is individualism/free market capitalism…the system based upon America’s founding principles of unalienable individual rights and constitution republican government…long absent from American health care.