It gets more fascinating by the minute, with the “unchartered” economic waters and the New Left controlling the White House (and the House and Senate). Watching the inauguration, I was momentarily hopeful that Obama will prove to be a centrist leader, a sort of middle-of-the-roader like Clinton, rather than a radical leftist who will implement socialism every chance he gets. His recent appointments, which include so many from Clinton’s administration (including the former First Lady as Secretary of State(!),  seemed to support this hope.

I now realize the audacity of my hope. The idea that Obama will be more Clinton than Carter is somewhat baseless even with his seemingly pragmatic appointments. Much about Obama remains a mystery, but his true ideological leanings are already beginning to show through.

Prior to the election and up until Inauguration Day, he was careful to keep his rhetoric an evocative mix of statements that promoted both self-responsibility and government welfare. But clearly his newly signed “stimulus package” is about as anti-capitalist as it gets. If you haven’t read the full text (a mind-numbing 647 pages, in pdf), this summary at Powerline blog is easier to digest. Included in the $825 billion spending spree that includes upwards of $136 billion in social programs.)

We know he is closely affiliated or has worked for some of the most radical leftists in America (Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, et al). But somehow he has managed to rise to power unscathed by these connections.

Obama’s popularity is a tipping point in this country and illustrates a frightening fact:  that there are now more people in America who want government to solve their ever-increasing problems — which are mostly a direct result of government intervention into the economy in the first place, such as rising healthcare costs, inefficient energy infrastructure, poor quality education, and on an on — than there are people who believe they can be successful on their own.

The left believes that there are things that governments do better — healthcare, welfare, infrastructure, banking, education and energy — and with the elections of 2008, the Democrats now have all the power to expand government control in these areas.

Since I wrote this nine months ago, a lot has happened. Foreign policy debacles aside, on the domestic front, at least one White House Czar (Van Jones) was exposed as a communist and resigned; the White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, was exposed as self-declared Maoist; Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize for no good reason; and the Senate is debating a health care bill that isn’t even written yet (so, of course, they can’t read it). Something is beyond rotten in Denmark (not to mention Norway).

But despite the rampant corruption in our federal government, I am heartened to see that I was wrong when I wrote that there are more people in this country who want socialism. I now believe there are actually more people who reject socialism. And I am heartened to see so many people stepping forward to not only expose the socialist proponents of the Left but to protest the insanity in Washington. Check out the sign at the end:  Capitalism is freedom.

There is hope yet.

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The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don’t matter. Once it’s in place, health-care ‘reform’ can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you’ll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form.

If this seems a perverse obsession for a nation with a weak economy, rising unemployment, and a war on two fronts, it has a very sound strategic logic behind it.

As I wrote in National Review a week or two back, health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That’s its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular. [emphasis mine]

I hope Obama’s health-care bill does not pass, but I don’t want it to fail because the costs are insane — (the Congressional Budget Office estimates the proposed plan will cost over $1 trillion over the next five years). I don’t want any government plan for health care. I oppose state-run health care because it is a leftist power grab that comes from people who only want more power over others. The left has an insatiable and irrational desire to run everybody’s lives — from how much of your own money you can keep to what cigarettes you can smoke to what sodas you can drink. (Watch, they’ll be taxing soda soon.)

No, there is nothing at all magnanimous about the Democrats’ goal to “reform health care.” Their intentions are not noble. It is never noble to confiscate other people’s money or to declare that you have the right to other people’s money.

For exceptional analyses of the dangers of socialized medicine and why we need to oppose it, I refer you to www.WeStandFIRM.org — a site started by Paul Hsieh and some other Objectivist friends back in Colorado.