How To Scare A Liberal

Nat Hentoff has penned liberal viewpoints for decades. Not necessarily modern “liberal” viewpoints, which are statist, fascist, anti-constitutional. Hentoff reveres the constitution and its guarantees of freedoms for individuals and freedom from government-by-pit-bull. In other words he is an old line liberal, as opposed to the new court-activist, anti-democracy Democrats.

Hentoff has stood against the would-be tyrants and anti-democrats of the past half century. In an on-line article for Jewish World Review, Hentoff claims never to have been scared; but now he is:

“I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.”
[emphasis added]

Hentoff discusses the Emmanuel “Complete Lives System” of deciding the value of a particular human to be weighed against the cost of health services:

“Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.”

Hentoff quotes "Wesley J. Smith, a continually invaluable reporter and analyst of, as he calls his most recent book, the "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" (Encounter Books).

Smith:

"Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.

"This is where the real mischief could be done because most regulatory actions are effectuated beneath the public radar. It is thus essential, as just one example, that any end-of-life counseling provision in the final bill be specified to be purely voluntary … and that the counseling be required by law to be neutral as to outcome. Otherwise, even if the legislation doesn't push in a specific direction — for instance, THE GOVERNMENT REFUSING TREATMENT — the regulations could." (Emphasis added.) “

As the Democrats have shown in the past, they are perfectly willing to slip nasty legislation into previously innocuous bills at 3 a.m., and then initiate the legislation by executive order – without a vote. There are plenty of sneak procedures available to congress to produce legislation secretly and without scrutiny.

Hentoff:

“Condemning the furor at town-hall meetings around the country as "un-American," Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are blind to truly participatory democracy — as many individual Americans believe they are fighting, quite literally, for their lives.

”I wonder whether Obama would be so willing to promote such health care initiatives if, say, it were 60 years from now, when his children will — as some of the current bills seem to imply — have lived their fill of life years, and the health care resources will then be going to the younger Americans?”

Hentoff should realize that Obama’s children will be so wealthy that insurance will be a non-issue for them. Mostly the elderly poor will suffer under Obama’s scheme.