Government can’t hug you, but it can kill you

It’s been a long time since I have felt as angry and impotent as I have felt since Monday. Conservative media right now is saturated with reaction to the news from Charlie Gard’s parents, regarding their decision to no longer pursue the legal battle to save their child’s life. Liberal media in the US is mostly silent.

I am not a parent, though I’ve wanted to be a parent for most of my life. I cannot imagine the pain of having to say goodbye to your child, let alone to your infant child. I cannot imagine the pain of saying goodbye because the Government has decided, against you, that it was in the “best interest” of your child to die.

Remember, if our lawmakers cannot shed Obamacare and replace it with something that recognizes personal liberty, we will–an absolute certainty–end up with socialized health care in America.

What I can’t imagine is currently what Chris and Connie are going through. If they read this, I hope they know that my heart is broken with their hearts. I love them and I love Charlie.

The argument for socialized health care, that up to this point I have mostly ignored, is that we should “care” about people less fortunate, and socialized health care is the best way to care.

I haven’t seen a single left leaning person attach this argument to Charlie’s case.

And that’s because they can’t.

Let’s discuss why a large centralized power having the decision making authority of whether you live or die is bad.

1. Government is not a person. More importantly, government is not capable of empathy, nor is it supposed to be capable of empathy. It is supposed to fill a specific set of functions, ie laws to maintain a civilized society, and national defense – ie keep other governments out. Obviously, people are human, and make up government, which introduces biases. Our goal should be to limit government’s power and to reduce bias and emotion as much as possible, not to increase it.
2. Running trillions of dollars of deficit will eventually bite us in the ass, folks. Sorry for the vulgarity, but spending money with no hope of paying it back is crazy. Eventually, it must find a way to cut costs. And usually, you look at trimming the most expensive costs first. This usually happens by comparing what you pay, to what you get. The more expensive one’s health care is or projected to be, the harder it will be to get government to pay for it. So, rare diseases, fetal defects, people past a certain age – government literally made the decision for Connie and Chris that their child was too expensive. And government won. So now, you want that here?
3. In Iceland, 100 percent of Down’s babies are aborted when diagnosed in utero. Children, who could have lived happy, successful, and fulfilling lives are aborted because they have an extra chromosome and are therefore different. There’s no excuse that makes this ok, and it’s disgusting. So, I ask, you want Government to make the decision for you that when pregnant you have mandatory tests? If you’re pregnant, and the child is determined to have Down’s or some type of heart disease, you want Gov’t to have the power to decide your child is too expensive to maintain?
4. Let’s take a second, and go to China. They recently switched their official one child policy, to a two child policy. They would enforce their one child policy by aborting women, whenever the women were found to have been carrying a second or third child. They would do this at any time. You could be 8 and half months pregnant, and if you were reported to the police, dragged to the nearest clinic to have your child murdered inside you. China’s currently experiencing a few problems, namely, not enough women. (Who would have thought that in a society where being a man was more important, people would not choose to have a girl as an only child?) Now, they’re importing girls and women from other countries, and I think there’s a pretty awful sex slave trade going down over there.

When you give the federal government the power to make your decisions instead of you, you are giving them the authority to make those decisions. Charlie should live as a warning to us all. Don’t let the federal government take control over your life. Here’s the thing, guys. Government doesn’t care. Government will go for the least costly and most efficient solutions that it can, because ultimately, it is a machine. That’s why you need to limit its power as much as you can, and retain your autonomy as much as you can.