Maggie's Farm

I am going for a ride after church on this lovely August day. If I take a bad fall or hit a branch and break my neck, rest assured that I not only have private major medical insurance and thus will be no burden to you, but I also have a living will. If I am permanently wrecked, shoot me. (.45, base of the skull. Closed casket is fine with me anyway, because I hate having people staring at me whether I am living or dead unless they are shapely 20 year-old blonds. Also, undertaker take note: I am allergic to Formaldehyde.) I would do the same favor for a horse or a dog - and I have done so.

This a quote from Acton:

In a fast-paced society, we have a tendency to leap past the basic questions into a morass of detail. Single payer or government as one provider among many? Mandates requiring every citizen to buy health insurance? Control over utilization by some board of experts? These are all important questions, but they should come after a consideration of our core values. The United States prides itself on being a nation with citizens possessed of a freedom given by God and thus not subject to the whims of human government.

The great Wilhelm Roepke, architect of West Germany’s miraculous post-WWII economic recovery, viewed the tendency toward ever larger government with alarm. He correctly ascertained that the more areas of life the government brings under its responsibility, the more it will eventually dictate the basic conditions of those areas of life. Democracy combined with a lack of appreciation for human independence from the government results in a “pre-totalitarian” society.

It is a sober and somber essay.

Related: I think Whole Foods is a joke and a half - and a rip off joint for the Volvo and Chardonnay set - but their CEO gets it about medical insurance. Good on him. As he points out:

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

Yes, the Socialist Utopia Awaits. All you have to do is to turn yourself into an ignorant, helpless infant first.