"Mom," asked my older daughter this week, "what does 'surreal' mean?"
"It means something is so wild and crazy that it's hard to grasp," I replied, and used the following example to illustrate.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article by James Turk on my blog that was one of the best analyses of socialism I've ever read. Ever. It was lean, no-frills, easy to understand, and absolutely true.
The article prompted an English reader to post the following comment: "I am not sufficiently familiar with U.S. politics to know exactly what aspects are worrying James Turk. If he has in mind the president's proposals for health care, it is surely not 'socialism' to help poor people with insurance payments. I would call it charity."
The comment left me sputtering. To me, this reader's definition of "charity" was surreal – something so wild and crazy that I could barely grasp how anyone could believe it.
Naturally other readers couldn't let this comment go. "Charity requires the money being spent to be volunteered, not forcibly removed from the donators," someone replied.
In other words, if a thug points a gun at you in a dark alley to steal your money for someone else, are we supposed to congratulate him on his charity because he didn't keep the money for himself?
The English reader added: "I would say it is a democratically elected government acting charitably on your behalf. The population of the U.S. acted charitably en masse by voting in a government who had this particular policy. Don't you approve of democratic government?"
(I feel compelled to point out that the U.S. is not a democracy, which is governed by mob rule; but a republic, which a smart reader defined as "a government of representatives of the people bound by a law higher than themselves." But don't worry, politicians don't know this either.)
I'm going to digress from the blog comments for a moment to explain what's been happening in our household in the last couple months. My girls and I wanted to visit our old stomping grounds in Oregon this winter and see some friends. But we had finally pulled together the money to take our older daughter to the dentist (first time in four years), and we discovered she has three small cavities that need filling.
We don't have dental insurance. Heck, it's all we can do to afford catastrophic health insurance (we're self-employed), which costs us more than our mortgage. So we scrapped our plans to go to Oregon, and instead we're saving up to fill the cavities in our daughter's teeth.
But that's OK. That's what responsible, mature adults do: Put their money into necessities (dental health) rather than luxuries (a trip to visit friends).
We are not asking for help. We would never dream of asking anybody else to provide the means to fix our daughter's teeth so we can have the luxury of visiting friends. That would be wrong.
When the English reader said, "It is surely not 'socialism' to help poor people with insurance payments. I would call it 'charity'" – she's incorrect. Obamacare does not propose to "help poor people with insurance payments." Instead, it proposes to entirely take over one-sixth of the economy against the wishes of 58 percent of the populace. Believe me, if all the government wanted to do was help poor people with insurance payments, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to simply buy one humongous group policy instead of implementing the bureaucratic nightmare of Obamacare.
And see, this is where the "surreal" part comes in. How can anyone in their right mind defend the idea of forcibly removing trillions of dollars of people's money and redistributing it as government "charity"? Especially since Obamacare will virtually guarantee to reduce and complicate available medical services and bog down the entire U.S. economy with inefficiency and massive taxation? Hellooooo?
And the number of allegedly uninsured? It's a lie, of course.
Phyllis Schlafly notes, "Obamacare is unconstitutional because of its mandate that all individuals must carry 'approved' health insurance, and all businesses must give health insurance to their employees whether or not the company can afford it. 'Universal' coverage will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service with power to punish those who don't have such a plan."
Those of us who are responsible and mature know Obamacare is far more than a kind and benevolent government providing "charity" to poor people. It's a means for a greedy, opportunistic government to seize control of vast areas of the economy and hold us by the cajones, ready to squeeze us into submission at the least provocation or yelp of protest.
The American people are finally beginning to wake up to the hideous repercussions if Obamacare passes. The protests and pink slips and poll results are all adding up to a single message: Leave health care alone. That's why the current administration has taken to meeting behind closed doors and bribing senators and bullying those whose votes are needed. This administration knows they're forcing unwanted legislation down our throats – but they're determined to pass it anyway, knowing full well the issue isn't health care, but socialism. Surreal, isn't it?
Remember, the government produces nothing. It makes nothing. It sells nothing. It can only take, with the threat of force, and redistribute to others. It can only bully and threaten and legislate and complicate.
I guess there actually are people out there – physically mature, perhaps, but emotionally childish – who think it's a good idea to force massive taxation on others at the point of a gun. But we're not among them.
So the bottom line is we won't be visiting Oregon this year because we need to get our daughter's cavities filled. We're proud of our responsible, mature decision to funnel our limited finances in this direction. We're also too proud to take charity … especially if it's forced.
Unfortunately the liberals don't feel the same way. They not only want others to accept their "charity," they demand it.
At the point of a gun.