Kim du Toit gets up on a rant about Bush's latest contribution to the advance of Amsoc: the "Healthier US initiative". He's right, so far as he goes, but I do have a complaint.
I cannot remember the last time that I ever saw a fully rigorous analysis of the logic behind this sort of rot, if I ever have. Let me draw a very brief analogy: Henry Hazlitt once pointed out that the difference between a good economist and a bad one is that, where the latter sees only consequences which are immediately obvious on the surface of things, the good economist grasps underlying implications.
I am only here to point out that so long as the premise that government should be responsible for health care is accepted, and to the degree that it is accepted, then abject decadence like a "Healthier US initiative" is a necessary consequence. It is fully, internally, consistent that people who pay for health care (like: taxpayers) should demand control over others' behavior. This principle extends in every direction. If, for one obvious instance, you ride motorcyles, then it is perfectly logcial that some sandalized wheat-germing wood-spoke Luddite can come along and, if he can't exactly scrap your scooter, he can certainly cramp your own judgment and force you to wear a helmet. Just because he's got the angle on you.
America is a now culture in which nobody is individually responsible for anything (if you doubt that, then just bear in mind that "responsibility" and authority are naturally inseparable: they are two different sides of the very same metaphysical coin), but everyone is responsible for everyone else.
And that means that any contemptible fool -- like the president of the United States, for instance -- can come along and arbitrarily demand that you conduct your private affairs according to his judgment, because nothing you do is private, anymore.
The essential problem is not that Bush -- or anyone else -- wants to control your life. The problem is that he can, because of the prevailing conviction that your life doesn't belong to you. At root, the prevailing conviction is that you belong to "society".
Well: do you?