Socialism: Creeping or Sudden?

The showdown on socialism in Ukraine is showing the world just how popular socialism is among peoples who have actually experienced it. The Ukrainians are apparently sick and tired of a socialistic system, having recently experienced it in their dealings with the Soviet Union. Looking at that situation from the outside, we, as world citizens should take careful note. People in Ukraine are willing to fight and die, if necessary to deliver their country into a democratic regime where they have something practical to say about how they are managed by big government. For the time being, at least, the dissidents in Ukraine seem to be in control of Kiev—but…for how long, nobody knows. If the Russians move into Ukraine with their tanks as they did in Georgia several years ago, all could be lost for Ukraine and its freedom-loving people.

Ukraine is threatened by the prospect of having socialism imposed on them suddenly by outside military forces of the Russian Bear. This sudden imposition has motivated the Ukrainians to stand up and fight for their freedoms.

On the other hand, we, in America, are threatened by socialism coming to us in a creeping form—one government regulation after another. Of course, we are also experiencing a near-sudden attack on our free-enterprise system by soft socialists in government who would take over one sixth of our economy in a sudden power grab, Obamacare.

The question is: How will we respond to this socialistic system. Just to show how significant is this threat to American free enterprise, let me tell you about a friend of mine.

His fictional name is Donald. He was a successful and highly trained physician in the U.K. when that country enacted the laws enshrining a socialistic system, the National Health Service, in that country. Donald and many of his colleagues soon after fled the country for greener pastures where they could practice medicine without government instructions on how to do it. He went to Canada. But…after two years, he found the situation in Canada with its socialized medicine system little better than that in the U.K. He then came to Cleveland, OH, where he lives now. He began to work in the Cleveland Clinic; and he was happy there for 20 years. He found the medical practice situation in the United States much more congenial to his work routines than he had found them in either the U.K. or in Canada. Donald is now retired and lives in the same retirement center where Nancy and I live.

In discussing this situation with Donald, he said to me, “Where can doctors migrate to now? There is no other place on earth where we can go to practice unimpeded medicine for our patients, which we know is right for them?”

Is there is nothing wrong with the freewheeling system of entrepreneurial medical delivery we have known in America? Yes, there is certainly something wrong. There have obviously been abuses of our system that need fixing; and some government regulation seems necessary; but it should be coordinated with the basic American system of free enterprise. The system of individual “mandate,” employer “mandate,” and other types of “mandates” is not welcome or workable in America. It is very interesting to me to see that of the huge amount paper it takes just to print up the ObamaCare law, not one word was spent in modifying the money-gobbling system of tort law that funnels millions of dollars into the legal system. This is not surprising in view of the fact that this law was crafted by a bunch of lawyers, all eager to protect their fat fees for prosecuting lawsuits against doctors.

Anyone who thinks there is nothing wrong with this ObamaCare law should ask themselves, “Why are Congress and the Senate, and all the aides to lawmakers exempt from using the law? Why is Big Labor exempt from using the law?” There is something wrong with ObamaCare. It should be completely rescinded and Congress should start over, making a workable and acceptable law. Amateur politicians and bureaucrats such as President Obama should not be allowed to completely ignore the other side of the aisle in crafting a good health care law.