Boiling Water

Most of you are familiar with the mini-parable about boiling a frog. To review, it goes like this.

If you try to boil a frog (don't ask!) by dropping him in a pot of boiling water, he will react to the hot water by springing out of the pot as soon as he feels it, relatively intact but not happy. However, if you drop him in a pot of cool water and slowly heat it up, he will be lulled to sleep by the warmth and be gradually boiled, unaware of what is happening to him.

There has been a general outcry over the administration's and Congress' proposed health care reform legislation, H.R.3200 in the House and the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee version. Many have protested against this legislation in town meetings and via direct contact to legislators. The White House and their left-wing support groups have responded with a multi-million dollar ad campaign and controversial emails from chief presidential advisor David Axelrod to folks who have no idea how they got on the list. (I was one of the unwilling recipients until I unsubscribed.)

The outbursts against the pending legislation have frequently been loud and boistrous but nonviolent (except for SEIU goons). Support for the legislation has dropped below 50% along with the president's approval ratings.

Some of the accusations have been excessive, such as the suggestion that the bills support euthanasia, which they do not.  (The House version does mandate periodic  "end-of-life counseling;" I believe the Senate version makes that voluntary.) The Capp Amendment (H.R. 3200) authorizing federal funding of abortions for "low-income urban populations" has added to the uproar. (This is eerily reminiscent of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's quotes regarding "populations we don't want too many of"). The HELP Committee version is changing daily and so is hard to keep up with. The latest is a suggestion that the "government option"--federal insurance agency--might be dropped. This may just be a trial balloon.

On the other hand, supporters have emphasized that we have nothing to fear because everything is voluntary and nothing is mandatory, which is also untrue. Establishment of several committees and councils intended to "advise" and "recommend" health care policy to various government agencies, while not overtly mandating anything, create a framework for policy implementation by federal agencies like HHS that do have regulatory authority. This is disingenious to say the least.

I'm not going to obsess over this conglomeration of confusing legislation--1,200 pages in H.R. 3200 and 617 pages at last count in the Senate HELP bill. This has been done to a turn by others. I think there is something larger at work here in the vociferous opposition that has so discomfited our esteemed politicos and the Prez. That is the headlong rush to change and fix everything right now, an approach generally accredited to Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. I think they failed to understand the nature of the traditional American.

We have, in addition to health care reform--the 800-pound gorilla, real or proposed initiatives like TARP (started under Bush); multiple rescues, stimuli and bailouts; monstrous present and future deficit spending commitments; auto and financial industry takeovers; cap and trade; CARS (Cash for Clunkers); taxes; Card Check; Fairness Doctrine; amnesty for illegals; closing Guantanamo bay; and more that don't come to mind at the moment. The point is, the administration and Democrats in Congress have tossed the frog into a pot of boiling water and that won't work with this particular frog.

The traditional American throughout the history of this country has resisted force and intimidation. If you push gently, he (gender neutral) will move, sometimes too easily. However, shove hard and he will resist. Attempt coercion and force, and he will fight back with everything he has. Just ask the British and French (colonial times), Santa Ana and the Mexicans, the Axis powers, Republican Guard, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and even the North Vietnamese who "won" the war at an unimaginably great cost.

I believe what we are seeing in the opposition to health care reform, as well as the growing disaffection with the Obama administration and the liberal Democratic Congress in general, is this resistance to being pushed around. They misunderstand the American psyche as they always have, in fact as they must. This is the Achilles' heel of liberal elitists. They know what's best for us and are determined to shove it down our throats. They underestimate the ability of us "fly-over" Americans to clench our teeth.

This is what the Founders truly meant when they created a Constitutional Republic incorporating checks and balances, forcing (they thought) moderation and caution in "change". They too were "a stiff-necked people." Thank God we haven't completely lost it.