So now you’re mad at the government?

If protesters are so angry and hostile at a government takeover of health care, where is this anger on other issues? This is not to say that I disagree with those protesting the new health care bill—I am right there in the trenches with you. However, I also would advocate reflecting on why a government takeover of health care is such a terrible thing. If moderates and conservatives are unwilling to tolerate a government takeover of health care, then why has there not been a similar uproar over things like the Federal Reserve, which currently has the power to regulate our entire banking system, the war on drugs, which is essentially just another example of the government playing both paternalist and doctor, and an imperial foreign policy that has expanded into a $1 trillion economic leech with no reduction in sight?

Big-government liberals won a big victory yesterday, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t fight back. However, if we are going to win that fight our political ammunition cannot be pragmatically-based double-speak attempting to push the government out of one part of our life while holding onto government intervention in other sectors. If we do not want our government running our lives for us and always doing what they think is “best,” then we need to figure out what place government should take, and keep them within these limits. Government cannot be confined to certain sectors and left out of others—for example, government control of health care involves government control of the insurance sector, which involves control of the financial sector, and so on and so forth.

I empathize with those moderate Americans who are livid with the government after this weekend’s events. I hope that the recent health care bill will be a wakeup call to this demographic that our fight against big government cannot be one of pragmatism, but rather must be one of principle. We have to make it clear to our government that we do not need them telling us how to live our lives or intervening in the economy against our will simply because they “know what’s best.” When we are able to rally together and denounce such intervention with one consistent voice, we then will be able to begin rolling back programs like ObamaCare.

Elliot Engstrom is a senior French major at Wake Forest University, and aside from his schoolwork blogs for Young Americans for Liberty and writes at his own Web site, Rethinking the State.