“Theodore Forstmann and George Will are the latest in a long series of writers and national leaders who have warned against the seductive appeal of government handouts. For example, 1960’s lecturer / columnist Henry M. Wriston, politician George Romney, and even a Vogue magazine editorial once admonished Americans about ‘luxuries-become-necessities’ leading to a complacence in which security is valued over freedom. Today, the typical scenario for weaning the masses from independence, says Forstmann, goes like this: ‘Give as many people as possible a taste of entitlement — give everyone, as our President likes to say a ‘stake in the system.” Notice this is not the same as a stake in liberty, or a stake in being an American. A ‘stake in the system’ means dedication to milking as much from the bureaucratic process as possible….
In pushing the Universal health care scheme, the Clinton Administration sought technical advice from countries already awash in socialized medicine. What most people don’t know, says Forstmann, is that the administration also sought political advice from those countries regarding how to push the idea. For example, ‘the German parliament advised that the most certain path to becoming a permanent governing entity was to socialize health care.’ Presumably, as soon as everyone had a taste of ‘free’ health care they would be reticent to give it up and, in fact, would insist on more. In the end, no amount of health care provided would ever be enough…”
From B. K. Eakman’s
Cloning Of The American Mind
