Thanks to Micky for bringing this up in my last post…

The issue here isn’t taxes or children’s health care. The issue is control and the abolition of the Western lifestyle. Micky’s comment really got me thinking. Have we forgotten history? Have we forgotten what the world was like prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain? Did we not fight to ensure the preservation of freedom and the American lifestyle? If not that, what, then, did we fight for during all of those years of the cold war?

The two items that make my topic de’ jour list these days are SCHIP (and government run health care in general) and environmentalism. I know, you may wonder how I can compare the “noble” causes of saving the children and saving the world with Soviet Europe. Well, it’s simple, really. It’s about control and the destruction of a way of life.

One of the true horrors of the SCHIP legislation is the funding. These government control freaks are looking to fund the $35 Billion SCHIP expansion by burdening the smokers out there. They seem to think that they can capitalize off of - and hence punish - people’s indulgences and habits. But why? Once again I have to commend these bastards on their underhanded tactics. They are using children to leverage another tobacco tax - this one a crippling tax - and anybody who dares to oppose it looks like an asshole. After all, who would dare to stand up and protect smokers at the expense of children?

Yet what Micky pointed out is very true. When they have crushed all of the smokers out through excessive taxation, where will they turn for funding? Remember that The Heritage Foundation did the math and determined that the government will need an additional 22.4 million new smokers by 2017 to successfully fund SCHIP. Yet, if they crush out smokers through taxation and smoking bans, they won’t be able to simply pull the program and leave all of those helpless children without their government funded health care. They will have to turn to a new source of revenue. So what’s next on the agenda? Alcohol? Fancy clothing and shoes? Cars? Leisure activities (i.e. movies, theater)? Jewelry and watches?

I know it sounds absurd to suggest those sorts of things, but the reality of the situation is that these people are waging an all out war on the Western lifestyle. They are diligently working to find ways to force us into reducing our lifestyles and standard of living, and they are doing so in ways that are hard to fight against. Again, who would dare fight against children and the environment?

So what’s next? Once these people have successfully crushed all of our indulgences and forced us into a relatively dismal (but politically correct) lifestyle, what will they have? Since their programs are designed to operate on the backs of indulgences, once they are gone they will have a big hole in the budget that will need to be filled, and that will mean heavy general taxation. But perhaps that is the overall goal after all. To create a nation of people who are so dependant upon the government dole that they will be willing to suffer ridiculous taxation to ensure their own well being.

But where does that leave us? Remember what East Berlin looked like across the wall? Remember the people living in misery? Everything was grey and dirty - dismal to say the least. The people had no indulgences. No spark of life. They existed but they did not live. And for what? So that they could be part of the “greater good?” So that everybody could be treated equally and have the same benefits? So everybody could get their government health care and their government rations?

It sounds pretty dismal, yet this is the direction that the Dems and their RINO counterparts are trying to steer us. Of course, their path is an even more dim one than Soviet Europe since Soviets were allowed to smoke and drink. We are quickly losing even those small freedoms… And what they can’t legislate out of existence they will tax out of existence. It a deliberate slow-bleed tactic designed to cut into our very way of life.

So before jumping on the “socialism in the name of the children and environment” bandwagon I beg that you take a long, hard look at the failures and misery of the Soviet Union and Soviet Europe. We’re well on our way and unless you want to find yourself standing in line with your government issue tin cup waiting for your soup and free physical, I would suggest that you reverse course and stop buying into these silly games.