Basically, I believe in the politics of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
I believe that your health insurance is your responsibility. Keeping your job, feeding your family, making your car payment, and paying for whatever kind of home you live in are all your responsibility, too. I believe that if you need more money, you should try to get a better paying job, or take a second job working nights (we've all been there), or whatever you have to do. Taking care of yourself is YOUR JOB.
Contrary to popular belief, the government is NOT your collective babysitter. It is NOT the responsibility of the government to raise the minimum wage so you can have more money. It is NOT the responsibility of the government to force your mortgage company to lower your payments, or to feed your children at school, or to install cheaper light bulbs in your apartment. And it is NOT the government's responsibility to provide you with health insurance.
It's really just that simple, folks. It's not mean or uncompassionate, either. I want you to succeed - but I want you to succeed on your own merits. When you've arrived, you'll be able to say that no one ever gave you anything, that you earned everything you have. And there's a certain kind of satisfaction in that - at least, that's how I see it.
People who see it my way also believe in a smaller government, and in less government interference in the lives of ordinary citizens. I don't believe it's a good thing to create six different new government agencies to oversee how my doctor is treating me, or to keep tabs on how my medical information is stored, or to make sure that my insurance company isn't making too much money.
And that's another thing. It isn't wrong to make a lot of money; at least it wasn't wrong when I was a kid. Lately it's become popular in the Left to bash the wealthy, and to blame this problem or that on them. But I remember this being America, the land of opportunity - not the land where the government won't let your company get too big, and won't let you make too much money. Work hard, work smart, make all the right business decisions - and then some arch-liberal Democrat gets elected and takes away your profits?! That's not the America I remember (of course, I grew up during the Reagan presidency, so maybe that's it).
When you allow the government so far into your life that they're paying for your child's meals, half of your rent and all of your health insurance, you forget that the government had to get that money from somewhere. And the source of all that money is ALWAYS higher taxes on others who have also worked hard for their income. What you're doing is forcing others to pay your way, and that's not how it's supposed to be in America.
It's your job to live your life. It's your responsibility to ensure that it's the kind of life you want it to be. When it becomes the government's job to give you everything you have, the government must, by its own very nature, take money from me, shift it around a little, and hand it to you - and vice-versa. This is the definition of Socialism. It's not a good thing.
Susan Shelley, in her excellent blog "America Wants to Know", calls it Collectivism. The idea is that those with more money are forced to share it with those who have less. Here's her fanstastic post about Barack's explanation of his own health care reform program (when he had to break it down for a five-year-old, what he said was straight out of the Communist Manifesto): http://www.extremeink.com/awtk/2007/11/barack-obama-explains-socialism.html.
Never mind YOUR years of training and hard work that went into those gains; they belong to the People now. It will never work in America, just like it didn't work in Russia, and has produced nothing but all manner of horrible poverty wherever it's been tried (Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, China, Eastern Europe, Venezuela, Angola, etc etc).
Socialism doesn't work. Not here, not now.
Not ever.
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NEXT UP: Michelle Obama tells you why she's never been proud of her country, until now.
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