WW III?

As Speaker Pelosi readies her final Napoleonic charge in her battle for socialized health care, it is no exaggeration to say the soul of the American way lies in the balance. More likely than not, Monday will see the obituary of free enterprise in the health care marketplace. The US is facing Europe’s rationing of care and the death of innovation, and the entire world will be worse off for it.

For the past century, nearly every improvement in people’s lives came from the free market system of the US. The great advancements from muddy subsistence in countries such as Japan, Chile, and Brazil are the sole result of adopting the free market system invented by the US. The great 20^th Century tragedies that killed nearly 100 million people were the direct result of socialist policies in countries like Russia, China, Germany, and Cambodia.

Of course Pres. Obama and Pelosi are hoping to steer the US to the kind of socialism found in Sweden, Singapore, or Canada. Socialism light – heavy government control but with a friendly face. Undoubtedly Sweden has no gulags and is a pleasant, if hum-drum supermodel factory. Why is it, then, that some socialist regimes devolve into genocide, while a few find a tolerable status-quo?

The reason why Sweden can make autos and plastic furniture is because the US invented the assembly line and plastics. The reason Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb never killed huge swaths of Africa and Asia is because the US invented the green revolution that has fed billions more people than Ehrlich ever imagined. The reason Germany and later Russia didn’t control all of Europe is because the US fought wars to protect its ungrateful allies. All these things were gifts to the world from the US way of life.

It is comparatively easy to build a socialist paradise when the US spends $400 billion+ each year to defend itself and its allies. It is comparatively easy for the Finns to build cell phones when the US invented the integrated circuit. For the past century, the US has been the world’s invention factory, and it has never complained when another country has prospered by copying US advances. The reason many nations have raced up to the US standard of living, but never beyond, is because they benefited from technology transfer.

Obama and Pelosi seem to want a piece of the socialist pie. They seem to envy the impression that the US’s socialist allies often lead a harmonious life free from the discord of capitalism. What the leftists in Washington don’t see is that the socialist paradises cannot exist without a free market US. The entire recorded history of Europe was constant warfare until the US allied with its free states. The entire history of mankind was serfdom under tyrants, thugs, and kings until the US set a new way with its invention of a Federalist Republic.

If tomorrow Pelosi puts another nail in the coffin of US exceptionalism, what will become of the world’s factory of invention, freedom, and opportunity? Will some other country take up the role of providing the world the ideas it needs to remain peaceful, healthy, and prosperous? Perhaps the Czech Republic, with its low taxes, solid plan for energy independence and capitalist ideals will lead a band of likeminded new-Europe nations into a new golden age. Perhaps not; just as likely is a new world war.

History has borne out the theories of F.A. Hayek that a major collapse from freedom into collectivism as contemplated by Obama and Pelosi breeds aggressive dictators. Without a strong US and its allies supported by its economy, who will stop Iran from dominating the Middle East and much of Southern Asia? Who will keep China on a moderate track with Taiwan? Who will invent the technologies to feed the exploding population of India? The result of abandoning the US’s engine of innovation and prosperity will be ugly indeed.

People rightly worry about their health premiums rising to cover those who wait until they are sick to buy insurance, but the real core of Obama and Pelosi’s socialist agenda is the end of freedom and prosperity for the entire world, and along with it the relative peace of the past 65 years. Not to overstate it, but tomorrow is important.