- All Unintended Consequences

If you think of the voters as the parents, and congress as our petulant and poorly behaved teenage children, then what we saw Sunday was a tantrum. When we elected Scott Brown we basically grounded them. We told Obama-Pelosi et al that their collectivist vision of America was not a responsible one, and sent them to their room. Last night they responded to us. They said that they don’t care what we think and that they ‘hate us anyway’, then they sealed the deal by setting fire to their curtains.

There will be damage of course, but I don’t think the whole house will burn down; not right away anyway. But you can’t argue that it was what the kids were going for. They don’t see it that way of course… to them it was just a statement to ‘right the wrongs’ that they imagine exist in the world outside their room. But everyone knows that petulant teenagers don’t really see the world as it is; and if ever there were a perfect description of Democrat ideology that would be it.

The real problem with the Democrat vision is that it’s just wrong. It has only a passing acquaintance with how the world really works, and when it’s true, it’s only true by accident. That’s why it so often adds to the problems it tries to fix rather than improving them. Government mandates, regulations and restrictions won’t do a thing to help the people they (at least say) they want to help, and the costs will have serious consequences that they haven’t considered at all. But more power for the government is the only tune they know so they are singing it with gusto. And they aren’t thinking at all about the ‘actual’ consequences of this bill beyond their own political future in November.

To them, the higher interest rates, slower growth, and higher unemployment will be completely unconnected to the 2 Trillion dollars they just promised to spend. (Even the Democrat talking heads admit that the leadership lied about the expense of this bill so let’s do away with that pretense between us at least.) To them the idea that every American now has a burden forced on them is simply a function of their role as our communal social consciences. (If we really were foolish enough to appoint anyone to that role, does ANYONE believe that these are the particular people we would trust with that responsibility?) And they view the money that they reach into our pockets and spend for us as a kind of charity.

There will always be medical care for those who have the means to pay for it, so I suppose my personal concerns are less than many people’s. But just as it was with welfare, it’s the people that get the benefits of this bill who will be harmed the most by it. Welfare increased the dependency of Americans on the government and this bill, if it stands, will do the same. It’s always that way when the Democrat’s throw a tantrum. It just shows us all once again, that if you never consider the consequences, then almost all of them will be unintended.