That's the Liberal project. Liberals take the long view and the long march. As Ace says,
The state is benevolent.
The state is wise.
The state loves you.
The state would never hurt you.
The state only wishes to help you.
Will you help the state to help you?
The State is God? Addiction to government "help" is sold and marketed in the same way that drugs are. It is, in fact, a drug in the sense that dependency sneaks into the brain and distorts who you are, strips you of your dignity, corrupts your soul by tempting you to focus on what you can get for free, and enslaves you if you let it. In the end, it leaves you just hungry for more.
Welfare includes crony capitalism, tax breaks for businesses, mortgage deductions, bailouts, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right down to disability and the now ubiquitous EBT cards.
Naturally, we Conservatives think it best to eliminate all forms of welfare and charity from government control except for the most desperate or hopeless of individual cases. Remove welfare from the middle classes and provide a safety net for the desperate: Restoring a True Safety Net
The Left, on the other hand, aspires to normalize and universalize welfare programs. Hayek's serfdom under a benevolent, altruistic, and all-powerful state. With Obomacare on track to fail resulting in a total government take-over, Liberals are beginning to comtemplate their next project: The Great Society's Next Frontier - Now that Obamacare—the largest expansion of the social-safety net in the last 60 years—is safe, what's next for the liberal economic project?
With the promise of health care completing the project of the 20th-century welfare state, liberals need to envision how to meet the needs of a new century.
Apparently Americans have many "unmet needs" which can only be provided by government - or by our neighbors at gunpoint. It's a sorry sort of mess and will not end well. Americans can do better than this if the government would get the heck out of the way of effort and creativity.
Cas in point: Tigerhawk's new blog posts about how the new Obamacare tax will damage American medical innovations.
