By Nancy Thorner, Opinion Contributor and Steve E. Maikoski
On December 11, 1941, Adolph Hitler declared war on the United States – officially taking this nation to war with his fascist powers.
Sadly, we are fighting fascism again, this time brought to us by a faction that has taken over the Democrat party, as it seeks more control over businesses and residents of these United States.
By fascism, we mean a government that allows businesses to remain privately owned, yet subject to heavy influences by government. Socialism has the government owning the businesses.
Fascism does not have to be managed by a dictatorship, nor does a dictatorship create a fascist government.
One of our nation’s biggest moves into fascist control was the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” The groundwork for that massive legislation was set by the Clinton “family presidency” in their campaign for government health care. You may remember how they kept displaying a government health care card like it was some sort of credit card for free health care. The marketing plan was brilliant, but after it failed, it was turned into a fundraising scheme of immense proportions.
Rush Limbaugh’s coverage of the scheme was excellent. Trial lawyers were filing frivolous lawsuits against medical practitioners – suits that were more expensive for the doctors to fight than just paying a settlement – so they and their insurance companies paid.
Senate Democrats did their part by stopping bills seeking to cease those frivolous lawsuits, so the process continued over the years. The trial lawyers took some of those funds from the successful lawsuits and contributed them to the Democrat politicians, thereby completing the circle. As the costs of those lawsuits hit medical care, they were passed along to the consumer. Then co-pays rose, insurance covered less of the cost, and political advertisements found more victims they could use to promote government health care.
The complaints about the high cost of medical care became a number one campaign issue, but with the wrong solution.
Our nation gave control of our health care to the politicians who were responsible for its high costs and administrative problems in the first place.
We thus gave the hen house to the foxes.
Unfortunately, perhaps the least experienced politician in our history is now in the White House.
Presently, global warming is seen as the new battle cry.
Electric vehicles are the new shiny object for environmentalists, with little concern about how the power required is generated.
And ironically, many of the environmental costs of producing products that are environmentally friendly are not environmentally friendly. Case in point? Electric vehicles.
And why is it that environmentalists are silent on the news that an Illinois Jeep Cherokee SUV plant is closing early next year, laying off over a thousand workers?
The costs of doing business in Illinois contributed to this change, but it seems that the greatest concern was the costs of switching over to electronic vehicles.
Obviously, somebody is eating too much ice cream to care about this move by Jeep.
Nancy Thorner is a longtime opinion contributor at Illinois Review.
Steve E. Maikoski was a photographer at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, with a focus on USA basketball.
