I read Doug Mataconis’ post at the Liberty Papers the other day, discussing a USAToday Op-Ed in which Pelosi and Hoyer accuse basically any opponent of national socialism government-mandated health care of trying to silence the “facts”. Ironically, Pelosi and Hoyer craft a lengthy fairy-tale about what Obamacare will actually be, which is almost entirely devoid of anything even remotely resembling a “fact”.

The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.

Except that the 1,000+ page bill:

1. Doesn’t allow any person the choice of not buying a policy. Ergo, less choice, not more.
2. And that the government decides what level of care is acceptable, and fines you (they call it a “tax”) if you don’t comply. Ergo, less choice, not more.
3. And that the government will effectively set the prices for all private health plans, effectively mandating that you buy certain plans or else. Ergo, less choice, not more
4. And that there will be a government committee in charge of deciding what treatments and benefits you get. Ergo, the choice is not left to doctor and patient.

(Do you notice a pattern here?)

To be fair, there are over 1,000 pages in the bill (PDF), so I don’t blame you for not wanting to read it. In fact I would be surprised of Pelosi and Hoyer have read it themselves, and I would be downright flabbergasted if someone like Nancy Pelosi, who has all the moral and intellectual capacity of a Geranium, actually comprehended what she had read. Fortunately someone else did read it, and summarized the healthcare monstrosity. But I digress.

Doug seemed to take issue with the fact that the health care nazis are calling people “un-American”.

Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Hoyer should be ashamed of themselves for calling the exercise of a precious Constitutional right “Un-American.”

No. They should be sentenced to nothing less than permanent exile. Further, he comments:

So, a town hall filled with disruptive Code Pink demonstrators is “democracy in action,” but a town hall filled with opponents of ObamaCare is Un-American. Or at least that’s how the calculus works in Nancy Pelosi’s universe.

I’m surprised that he’s surprised by this; it’s nothing new in the game of politics. Recall a few years back, when the Bush administration played the same game? Sure, the circumstances were a little bit different, but it boiled down to the same argument, crystallized in the famous Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists speech, which would become a staple of the latter Bush Regime.

Stirring up fear, creating enemies where there are none, and then accusing anyone who’s not on the bandwagon of being “un-patriotic” has been the modus operandus of politics (electoral and otherwise) for hundreds of years. Politicians have to pit brother-against-brother, because that’s how they lever their control. They create, instigate, or imagine a “problem”, and then propose that they alone are uniquely qualified to handle the problem. Or they make fantastic promises to Paul, which can only be “kept” as long as the politics can keep Peter in a condition of servitude, in order to provide for those promises.

Thus the despot subdues his subjects, some of them by means of others, and thus is he protected by those from whom, if they were decent men, he would have to guard himself;The true rewards of tyrants. just as, in order to split wood, one has to use a wedge of the wood itself.

— The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, E. La Boettie

This behavior, these false accusations and empty promises, the rhetoric of “I know what’s best for you” or “You have to do this for me” or “for the poor” or “for the children” — always conditioned upon the unspoken: “or else!” — is the behavior of a sociopath. It is the behavior of someone who cares not for your needs, wants, desires, freedoms or objections (moral, religious, or otherwise). These are the behaviors of people who wish to keep you in chains.

Is it “un-American” to reject these crimes for what they are? Doug says maybe it is, and if so, “Make the most of it.”

Is it “un-American” to disagree with someone? Is it “un-American” to want to put an end to other people telling you what to do, where to go, how much to pay, how to live, how to die? If it is so, I want absolutely nothing to do with being “American”.

If this is truly “un-American” then we’ve got a hell of a lot more allies out there.