Today is the anniversary of the enactment of prohibition. The government, in all of its glory, set out to save America from itself. Just as today we have the green movement, anti-tobacco zealots and over reaching paternalistic Judas' such as New York Mayor Bloomberg, prohibitionists enacted onerous taxes, fees, programs to indoctrinate the youth and segregationist laws placing saloons and bars away from downtown society. In short, prohibitionists knew better than the joe sixpack of the day much as blue staters today want to lord over red staters and other Americans too "dumb" to know what's good for them.
So, on the anniversary of prohibition we find ourselves facing a different playing field with the election of Senator Scott Brown which leaves today's "prohibitionists" short one vote for their health care reform. The have done to their current targets of prohibition, such as tobacco, the same things they did then to alcohol. They have taxed, regulated and harassed doctors, insurance companies and to the average citizen they have offered government care for the betterment of all.
Just as the society controllers of prohibition failed then, they will fail now. Just as they put millions of Americans out of work then, they will do so now. Just as they created organized crime then, they will obliquely create new crime and new crime syndicates now. Just as then, government is not the answer now.
As with the federally enacted prohibition against the imbibing of alcohol, today's purveyors of mandatory health care cite the need for such legislation as a moral imperative for the health of the nation, the health of industry and business and for the good of society as a whole. Indeed, just as prohibitionists spoke of the dregs of society, the indigent, the immigrant, the negro and the rural ignorant, being helped, today's "reformists" speak in more veiled terms of he disadvantaged, the undocumented, the mentally challenged and those unable to grasp the true needs of a modern day society. Prohibitionists thumped Bibles for the cause and marched and swung axes in pursuit of propriety. Today's reformers thump political tracts and 'white papers" of reported gravitas, march and swing government promises and money in pursuit of a just society.
The people are awakening, just as they did to the unintended consequences of prohibition, to what this massive government takeover of health care will mean to their lives. People have historically trusted politicians in this country and that trust was and now is being betrayed by politicians. These politicians believe they are smarter than those they represent and as is usually the case, politicians are quite surprised when a wake up call points out just how stupidly they have been acting.
Scott Brown is the de jour wake up call.
