One of my favorite stories of all time is George Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm”. It was assigned reading for my 7th or 8th grade English class and my first time reading it stands out for two reasons: 1) It was the first time I had read a story about animals that did not have a happy ending, and 2) I couldn’t put it down and devoured the book in one night. That last feat was one I had never done before and I don’t believe I have ever repeated. It was only later that I learned that the story was an allegory for the Russian Revolution and I was somewhat annoyed that it never came up in our class discussions, as that added an entirely new level to the story itself. For those of you unfamiliar, in the story the animals of a farm in England rise up and overthrow the farm owner, chasing him away and taking over the farm to run themselves. Initially it’s a workers’ paradise as all of the animals pitch in to do their share and the farm prospers. Like any paradise, “human” nature sets in and the pigs chosen to lead the animals are corrupted by their power. The pigs’ lives become more luxurious while the working class animals slowly but surely watch their own become more and more miserable. By the end the pigs have taken on so many characteristics of the humans that they helped to “liberate” the farm from that it becomes impossible to tell the pigs apart from some visiting humans.
When Animal Farm was first established the animals lived by seven commandments:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
For the benefit of the sheep, who lacked the brain power to understand the commandments, they were given the simple phrase of “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Over the course of the book the pigs break these commandments to escalating degrees, and each time one is broken the commandments painted on the side of the barn are modified or removed to accommodate the newest rule that is broken by the ruling class. You can see the original commandments, along with a quick breakdown of how and why each was broken here.
I see many similarities in the left today with President Obama. They unconditionally swallowed every promise he made, such as running up our debt being “irresponsible and unpatriotic”, promises to compromise national security (Guantanamo, wire taps, drones), and openness and transparency in his administration. As he broke each of these promises they simply accepted them with nothing more than sometimes a few breaths of perfunctory protest.1 For the less informed voters, the simple mantra of “Hope and Change” was easy to bleat in approval.
The issue of Obamacare truly brings to light the pigs rewriting the rules for themselves. The first sign that Obamacare wasn’t the promised load of sunshine and rainbows came when the same unions that fought to support it were now wanting exemptions from this toxic law. More recently, we saw Secretary of state John Kerry lead a group of unpatriotic, racist Democrat members of Congress who wanted removed from Obamacare one of its funding sources – a tax on medical devices that threatened jobs in that industry. I still don’t understand how they could argue this, as every leftist knows that raising taxes does not have a negative impact on economic activity, much less job creation.
But sabotaging tax increases needed to fund this “revenue neutral” program was nothing compared to what came out a few weeks ago. Ace of Spades picked up on a story in Politico about how lawmakers planned to exempt themselves from Obamacare. Later on Harry Reid said that exemptions may not be necessary and that the problem may be from a piece added by Republicans, but we can’t be completely sure until we’ve read all of the bill to find out what’s in it, now can we? And for that matter, how much can we trust a known pederast like Reid? Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the original story:
There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.
…aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty.
Plus, lawmakers — especially those with long careers in public service and smaller bank accounts — are also concerned about the hit to their own wallets.
In the words of the immortal Popeye the Sailor Man, “Well blow me down!” All along every leftist has been insisting that Obamacare is the greatest piece of legislation from their Lord and Savior and now the same people who voted to pass the bill to find out what’s in it want no part of it? And wait a minute, a law that causes insurance premiums to increase disproportionally hurts then poor? And it will only now have a negative effect on employment when it affects them personally? I don’t know how to take this, because this just turns upside down the biggest defenses of Obamacare!
At the end of Animal Farm, one of the final steps in the pigs’ transformation was to teach themselves to walk upright on two legs, in direct violation of the first commandment, and the basic slogan of their sheep. Fortunately, in preparation for this moment the sheep had been given a new slogan to bleat just before any protest could be raised, “Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!” One of the older animals had vague memories of something in their old commandments and asked one of her fellows to walk her over to the barn to read them to her. By this point the barn had been painted over to reveal one sole commandment:
“All animals are equal and some are more equal than others.”
George Will summed this debacle up in a completely unrelated story about how the furloughs at the FAA designed to punish air travellers were miraculously resolved immediately before many lawmakers and their staff members were scheduled to fly out of DC,
“Amazing, the dispatch with which the government acts when its stupidities inconvenience the rulers as much as the ruled.”
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
1 Of course, leftists will correctly blast for conservatives for staying as quiet as we did when Dubya laid a solid foundation for sending federal debt skyrocketing. Are you all regretting staying on the sidelines for as long as we did? I know I am.
