Let’s say you’re one of those well educated leftists believing in a significant role of government in our lives.  You hate the republicans because they are just a bunch of crony capitalists, funneling tax dollars away from the poor and middle class to their rich friends in various industries.  Part of your justification for your belief and faith in government is that after all, if the government doesn’t take care of the poor and regulate these cronies, who will?  Your support of the democrats is based on their promises to soak the rich and other such things to better and more fairly distribute the wealth so that all of the poor and unfortunate can have this government-provided safety net, into which they can fall when hard times hit them.  

Question:  how does it feel to know that your democrat friends are funneling tax dollars away from the poor and middle class to their rich friends in various industries?  Did you see hospital stocks yesterday with the court’s ruling?  Did you see the stock of the various big insurers?  If you owned Apple computer, and the government ruled that anyone that refused to by an Apple computer would basically be taxed an amount necessary to buy an Apple computer, and the court upheld this law, what would that do to your stock?  This is exactly what happened with the court’s ruling and was the intent of the law from the beginning.

Big insurance, big hospitals, big pharma and the HIT (health information technology) industries wrote this health care law.  They brought unfathomable amounts of money to the table to be at the table while the bill was crafted.  It was written by them and designed by them to put their smaller competitors out of business.  That was the purpose of the law.  If this isn’t the  crony capitalism that has characterized the republican party for the last 50 years, I don’t know what is.  

Where has the skepticism of the left gone?  Why do you on the left continue to discriminate, favoring one political party over the other, not understanding that the only rational approach is to distrust both sides?  How can you believe so easily?  Why is there such little distrust when the track record of truth-telling by government for quite some time is so dismal?  

It isn’t always necessary to learn things the hard way, but the faith that many on the left have put in government by this administration, grants them undeserved legitimacy and guarantees more tough first hand lessons.  Make no mistake, I have little faith in either side.  Rather than say “my guys are good and your guys are bad,” why can’t we stop discriminating and declare them all bad?  

This crony capitalism from the left should leave many of you on the left breathless.  I would encourage you to watch events unfold keeping your mind open to the idea that you have been duped.  Ask questions as you see the poor and elderly, those clinging to the promise of Obamacare, increasingly disenfranchised by this legislation.  Remember to test not what you hear but what you see with Murray Rothbard’s penetrating question, cui bono (who benefits).  Try to get back in touch with your inner hippy and reject the fascistic version of economics traditionally championed by the GOP.

G. Keith Smith, M.D.