https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/status/446472281833734144
http://archive.is/UHhzS
The contradiction in this play on the 'Gadsden Flag' is obvious — all government social welfare programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, etc.) are transfer payment programs — in other words, they are forced charities. That's all they can be. The government is not an economic producer that provides goods and services — all government social welfare programs operate via coercion, taking from one individual to give to another. The government must first take from one individual, in order to provide anything to another.
The challenge to supporters of such transfer payment programs is not to explain how they are not forced charities — the attempt would just be blatant dishonesty — but to explain how a forced charity can be moral. That people do not offer such an explanation, is a good indication that they cannot — it is no surprise, since it would require explaining how an initiation of force is moral.
There is no shame in needing help and asking for it, but there is shame in pretending that forcing others to help is moral, because a majority of people have approved the coercion via some political process.
And note that it is impossible to tread on a government, since government, in essence, is a monopoly on the use of force. That is, government is not subjugated when its actions are curtailed, and it is prevented from applying an immoral use of force — this is the removal of a subjugation. Ultimately, the only human value that government can provide to a society is the protection of individual rights (police, courts, and the military) — everything else can be provided by private sector businesses or private citizens (even things like fire protection services — everyone has heard of volunteer fire departments, for example).
The repeal of the 'Affordable Care Act', or any other government social welfare program, does not constitute one group treading on another — it is the removal of such a treading, since such a repeal would prevent one group from forcing another to participate in a forced charity.
And here is a portion of an opinion piece Christine Pelosi wrote back in 2011, entitled 'Elections 2011: Voters Reject Tea Party Extremes, Protect Freedoms' --
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/victory-voters-reject-tea_b_1084078.html
https://web.archive.org/.../http://www.huffingtonpost.com:80/christine-pelosi/victory-voters-reject-tea_b_1084078.html
Americans cherish our liberty and don't want government or corporations to take away our freedoms. President Obama must be heartened and his Republican challengers concerned about the people's vetoes of extreme tea party corporate libertarian overreach in Ohio (workers' rights) Maine (voting rights) Arizona (immigrants' rights) Mississippi (reproductive freedom), and Iowa (marriage equality).
Christine Pelosi, like many other Americans, has a good deal of trouble thinking about 'freedom' coherently — when such people want something from government, they act as if they are defending freedom, regardless of how many freedoms must be violated to give them what they want.
In seeing Pelosi's tweet and the article quoted above, I could not help but think of Orwell's term 'DOUBLETHINK', from his novel '1984' --
https://archive.org/details/GeOr_1984/page/n269/mode/2up
DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.
It was at least nice to see a number of mocking replies to Pelosi's ridiculous tweet. Like this one —
I see a typo and missing comma. Should be "DON'T TREAD ON ME, OBAMACARE"
And notice that Christine Pelosi is highly educated. Here is her profile at democracypartners.com --
http://web.archive.org/.../http://www.democracypartners.com:80/?q=partners/christine-pelosi
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