Leftist Gets Mugged By Reality

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Ronald Reagan in 1961; transcribed by Glenn Beck in 2009:

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand said, if we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, they can we can expand the program after that. Well, let’s see what the socialists themselves had to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed, this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Well, we can’t say we haven’t been warned.

James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention said: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

Now in our country under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.

Patti Davis, President Reagan’s leftwing and Obama-supporting daughter, this past Friday:

Why, it’s almost as if dad might have been onto something, way back when.

Update (12:05 PM PDT): Davis deleted her tweet, perhaps as a result of all of the attention it received from Twitchy.com and its readers. Fortunately last night I took a screen capture of it before it went down. I replaced Davis’ deleted tweet above with the screencapped version.