The Center-Left Shift

Why are the Obama Democrats pushing health care legislation the Wall Street Journal called "The Worst Bill Ever?"
Why is the Democrat leadership forcing a bill "so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve?"
Why do Democrat leaders need to buy votes for a complete overhaul of a health care system claimed to be in such crisis as to threaten our very survival? Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson got a sweetheart deal, the "Cornhusker Kickback." Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu got fat stacks of cash, the "Louisiana Purchase." Not to mention Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's pay-for-play school subsidy sweepstakes...
Why are Democrat leaders so apparently willing to sacrifice seats in Congress and to pass legislation that more than half of the American public viscerally oppose?
The answer can be found in President Obama's own words when he promised to "fundamentally transform the United States of America." We're starting to see exactly what he meant.
The United States has throughout its history traditionally been considered a "center-right" country, meaning a nation that relies on the power of the Individual to achieve, to drive innovation and economic growth and provide the cultural foundation for our society. Our wealth and prosperity are grounded in a generally religious worldview that celebrates and encourages the sense of hard work, entrepreneurial risk and accompanying reward, and the protection of values such as a respect for life and a strong traditional family. Tradition is not a dirty word and can exist peacefully with benign progress such as technological advancement and educational improvement.
The culture of the Progressive Left, however, is much less concerned with traditional center-right values. How many times have we heard President Obama impudently dismiss the "failed ideas of the past?" In order to achieve Progressive Enlightenment, the culture must be changed. There's an old saying, "To change the country, first you must change the culture."
We have seen the cultural transformation occurring in this country for decades. From the Summer of Love to the drug culture of the Eighties; to the proliferation of sexual content in television, movies and music to the sexualization of adolescents in school halls and parentless homes; to the glamorization of recreational drug use, today's cultural center has shifted to the left. Self-reliance and self-control have become laziness and self-indulgence.
The Left has been waging this battle over the center of the country for a century. It is the struggle of the American body politic between more government or less, more economic market regulation or less, more restriction of personal freedom or less. The current health care recklessness is ultimately the final blatant, arrogant, autocratic attempt of the Left to permanently shift the United States from its traditional center-right to the left. It is the framework, a means to an end.
The end result is a left-leaning, European style governance which assumes centralized governmental authority rather than individual empowerment. The concept of self-determination and rugged individualism is eliminated in favor of political group-movement and communal collectivism.
The argument will no longer be about how much government intervention is appropriate in citizens' private lives. Rather, much like European politics, governmental intrusion is assumed, and opposition will bicker over which party can better manage centralized, top-down market regulation, massive bureaucracy administration and entitlement distribution. Once this health care entitlement is installed and the federal government will inevitably by design have no choice but to intervene in the market, the argument is no longer "Should we have the federal government provide health care?" but "Which party will provide your government health care better?" No longer is the question, "Should the federal government intrude in your personal private life in this way and to this extent?" but "How should the federal government intervene in your personal private life and which party will intervene better?"
This is goal of the Obamacrats, to install a permanent, monolithic entitlement that completely eliminates Conservatives' ability to appeal to the innate desire of all people for personal freedom and to exercise that desire for freedom in the voting booth. Self-indulgence and generous entitlements have the amazing ability to guarantee power for the providers of entitlement benefits. That "freedom" thing? Who needs it when your governmental benefactors provide?
Change we can believe in? "Fundamental transformation" from free citizen to slave.