Unvarnished Opinion.com

Honest, Factually-Based, Conservative Analysis and Opinion about Today's Political World

Enter your search terms

Web UnvarnishedOpinion Submit search form

Recent Articles

The Golden Bull Awards

Candidate Profiles

Archives

About the Author

Comp USA Coupons

Bones of Contention

First Published March 26, 2010

With the passage of the Senate health care bill into law, Obama and the Democrats have ushered in a new era in the acrimonious debate over our relationship to our government and our liberties. As Roe v. Wade demonstrated, the political fallout from decisions of the sort Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have made in forcing through this bill is a uniquely American style of vicious infighting, a roiling turmoil not seen in other democracies.

Rather than being decided by a high court, in other parts of the western world abortion was settled as a matter of law through the legislature. This is how it used to be handled in the US, as well, at the state level, like gay marriage, and it was a relatively quite issue, compared with the current cannonade. In Europe, national legislatures passed laws legalizing abortion on demand after a lengthy public debate, and that was that. The people spoke, their legislators and representatives heard them, and acted accordingly, end of story. While there are still movements to repeal those laws, they don't have nearly the vim, vitriol, or vehement political significance of the pro-life movement here in America. The debate in Europe is over. Here, I question whether it ever will be.

If you look at the decision in Roe, absenting the moral arguments, it's very poor jurisprudence. Any number of constitutional lawyers and scholars have denounced it as such. The only reason the left embraces it so whole-heartedly as "settled law" is because it endorses a position they hold ideologically. There is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that abortion on demand must be legal, but also nothing to suggest it mustn't be either. The issue just isn't addressed, and for almost 200 years, no one had suggested it should be. There was simply no grounds for the ruling the Court made, and it struck those of us on the losing side of that court fight as arbitrary, morally heavy handed, and dictatorial.

Ever since 1973, therefore, we've been fighting back. The debate isn't over; the arbiters just prejudged what the outcome should be and acted accordingly. They were wrong to do so, and the fight has ascended to the level of physical violence on both sides, most recently with the killing of Dr. George Tiller, one of the very few practitioners to perform partial birth abortions in the state of Kansas. His murderer, Scott Roeder, was convicted in about five seconds flat, but took the stand in his own defense, saying that he had done nothing wrong in killing a murderer to stop more death. Striped of other options by a legal process that had rendered a more or less absolute decision, he felt he needed to take matters into his own hands.

It's a sentiment that resonates so strongly because pro-lifers don't think they were allowed to contribute to the decision that was made. We could probably have made our peace with the issue and continued trying to repeal legislation and change the cultural outlook on the issue without the political backlash, without it becoming such a sensitive subject. That's what's happened in other places.

The same can be said of universal health care. This is one of the few western countries not to have it, even though we're also one of the richest, and it's because we just don't want it. Every poll that's been done in the last six months on any of the bills put before Congress as a whole has found the American people firmly opposed to the idea, usually by a margin at least 20 points wide. It's strikingly unpopular legislation, and Congress passed it anyway by buying the votes of many of those involved.

And because of this, things will get ugly. It's already beginning, with stunts like cut gas lines and coffins left in front of Congressmen's homes. Again, we who opposed the implementation of this bill (or any like it) did not get our say. Or rather, we weren't listened to. In the week leading up to the vote, phone lines to Capitol Hill were so thoroughly jammed by people opposed to the bill that lawmakers and staffers were having trouble making outbound calls. Letters poured in to tell them, don't do this! And it was all ignored. Because of this, Congress will transition to Republican hands again in November, and may not revert to Democrat control for another decade at least.

But that's just the beginning of the pain this legislation will cause on both sides. All one has to do is pick up a newspaper in countries with nationalized medicine to discover that it remains the central focus of the political world in countries where it was implemented with popular support. People found out just how bad it is, and there's an endless stream of tweaks and fixes being pushed through to try to make it better. But it won't be like that in America.

In America, we didn't choose this system. We were vehemently against it; rather it was crammed down our throats. And we will fight back, as always. The political fights in Europe can get nasty, but it's nothing compared to what will happen here. Once the system is implemented, even those who support it will begin to realize all its various hidden traps and pitfalls, and its approval rating will drop to where Congress' is. Or rather was, before they passed this bill. Health care will take its place as a central issue of American politics for the next half century at least, and the acrimonious bile and vitriolic bitterness of those on both sides will make this fight look like the trench warfare of WWI next to the Europeans' schoolyard scuffles. That's not a threat, just a fact.

I hope Mr. Obama has made his peace with being a one-term president, because this isn't over. Not by a long shot. And it's only going to get worse.