America’s Future is with Asia, not Europe

Passage of President Barack Obama’s health care bill has not lessened Americans’ opposition to it. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, fully 56 percent not only oppose it but also want it repealed, and only 41 percent oppose repeal.  Pundits have given a multitude of reasons for American opposition:  it is unconstitutional; it will be disastrous for the US economy; its re-distributive nature is contrary to American values of free enterprise and individual responsibility; its deliberately depressive effect on profits will hamper new medical research and innovation that have benefitted people worldwide; and that is only the beginning of the criticism.  Conservatives frequently accuse Obama of trying to re-make the United States along the lines of European socialism through the health care bill and the rest of his domestic and foreign agenda; and polls indicate that the charge rings true among most Americans.  As columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, “Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt’s transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy.”  Read more