America is the world leader in most important categories: #1 in nuclear warheads, #1 in citizens incarcerated, and breaking into the top 50 in healthcare. We don’t look to Europe for solutions to our problems because those countries are a bunch of whiny, over-indulged socialist brie-eaters with funny accents. If there is one thing every patriotic American knows, it’s that socialism is pernicious and has no place in the American way of life.

That’s why our cherished Constitution forbids socialism to flourish anywhere within our borders – with the very narrow exceptions of our public schools, postal system, fire and police departments, interstate highway system, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, federal prisons, all state universities, most community colleges, Social Security Administration, National Guard, Coast Guard, public libraries, most local garbage collection services, the National Weather Service, and a few thousand other minor social service programs.

My point is, with a few isolated exceptions, the USA simply does not tolerate the tyranny of socializing our civil services (if you don’t count the folks at the Civil Service Administration). The mere mention of the word socialism stirs a visceral fear in the hair-trigger psyche of our proud democracy.

Socialism enslaves people through intrusive government over-regulation. Case in point: Canada’s socialized healthcare system. Ask any Canadian how they feel about their healthcare compared to ours. An astonishing 98%* of Canadians surveyed said they would gladly swap their healthcare system for ours (* if it was necessary to do so in order to get their child back from kidnappers).

Until Obamacare (known by liberal America-haters as the Affordable Care Act)  was enacted, America was the proud supplier of one of the world’s elite healthcare systems – and by elite I mean #37, right behind Costa Rica, and several places ahead of Pakistan.

Sure, 32 of the world’s 33 most highly developed nations all have universal healthcare. But Americans have never followed the herd. We forge our own path, dig our own grave. Who invented the Snuggie? The Clapper? The TV show Ice Road Truckers? One word: Pioneering Americans. (Okay, so we don’t rank very high in global word count rankings.)

So what if prior to Obamacare, the average American had been paying on average 40 to 50% more per year than countries with universal healthcare? Those other 32 countries include backwards, oppressive socialist-leaning regimes like Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Canada and (gasp) France. And do we really want to look to France as a model for anything? (Okay, France, I’ll give you points for inventing crêpes. They’re yummy.) If you don’t agree that Obamacare means an end to our freedom, just look at some of its core provisions. It denies freedom-loving Americans….

• the right not to carry health insurance because we know we will never get sick and need it
• the right to be denied health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, and
• the right to have our coverage unilaterally dropped when our policy is no longer profitable to our health insurance provider

Oh sure, I might decide to buy health insurance eventually – maybe when I’m 85 and eying a hip replacement or a heart transplant. But until then, no meddling government bureaucrat has the right to make me buy health insurance, not when I can make far better use of that money buying Power Ball lottery tickets.

Just over a week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court listened to arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare. Obama wants to force every American to purchase health insurance, much the way we’re required by law to buy car insurance. Does Obama think the American people are cars? What an insult. If so, my body would be a broken-down 1982 Chevy Citation with the radio missing, but I digress.

I believe it was Patrick Henry who once tweeted Give me liberty and give me death! – or something like that. Our fore fathers – five if you include Alexander Hamilton –  founded a Christian nation (Jews are allowed in limited quantities if they behave) based on the fundamental principle that all white, male, Christian, educated, landowning Americans with slaves were endowed with certain inalienable freedoms:

• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom to carry a concealed weapon to a house of worship of their choice (so long as it was Christian)
• Freedom to have insurance providers raise everybody else’s rates and let others pick up the tab for your emergency room surgery because you didn’t bother to buy health insurance

When it comes to our cherished freedom to decide how to manage our own health – listen to Patrick Henry. Give us liberty and give us death. Say Hell-No to Obamacare and Hel-lo to undetected stage-four lymphoma.

Who among the top 1% would benefit from Obamacare? No one. Oh, sure a small number of people might be better off – and by small number I mean barely 32 million previously uninsured Americans – none of whom are Facebook friends of mine. And who is President Obama to tell me I must spend a portion of my hard-earned paycheck on health insurance premiums instead of investing it wisely as I see fit, by placing it all on Daddy’s Overdraft in the third race at Pimlico? (He’s excellent on a muddy track.)

If all goes well, come June, the Supreme Court will hand down its decision to overturn this nefarious threat to our liberty. We’ll all happily return to the wonderful way things were, safe from the threat of a hostile government takeover of healthcare, comforted knowing that our civically-minded health insurance companies will do their darndest to resist shareholder demands to raise our premiums for years to come.

But if the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare, you can kiss all your cherished personal liberties goodbye forever. Before you know it, the government will start regulating local libraries, public schools and national parks – someday maybe even Medicare. Oh what a hellish nightmare!

Please join me in praying that God will direct the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare and return our great nation to a simpler time when healthcare decisions were private matters, and the government stayed out of it entirely – the 13^th century.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012