The Emperor's New Question: A Philosophical Look at Health Care

In my new weekly column for When Falls the Coliseum, I get to wear the disguise of "The Emperor of the World." As we all know, some disguises can be liberating; this one allows me to air out the saltier, less compassionate side of myself. (My wife thinks I am way too nice here on H&R; I tend to growl a bit more during our living room conversations about the world.) In the column, "The Emperor" makes a decree of some kind and then deals out punishment for transgressions. The punishments are always Dante-esque -- flavored with metaphoric meaning that is sometimes obvious and sometimes not.

Yesterday, my alter-ego made a decree that one is owed nothing as a result of his or her hard work.

When I posted a link for my Facebook friends, I captioned it with a reference to the Declaration of Independence, sort of mechanically. (I often write that way.)  Here's what I posted:

Okay, now the Emperor is mad. Stop yer whining and accept the fact that you deserve nothing but life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (Key word: "pursuit." If they had meant "attainment," believe me, they would have said that.)

After I wrote this, I sat back and said, "Hmpf." (I actually said that. I say that a lot.)

Flies at the Wheel

Pieter van den Bosch:
"Old Woman Reading a Book "

If I am lucky, I have eighty-or-so years to live, in total. I choose not to live those that remain in either a state of delusion or as a slave to a popular, paradoxical notion that the freedoms I am afforded by the state make me a slave to the state. So, I am not going to sacrifice time during which I can really live in order to become either a servant of or a fighter against the state.

My life belongs to me and I am fully aware of the illusion that is created in a democracy (more specifically, a republic): that I, the common man, can live a common life and still have an impact or a "say" in the direction of governmental affairs.The position I am in (and that most of you are in) is this: If I want to make an impact on the mechanics of American government, I can give up my freedom to live life as I want in order to serve the state. Being common voters makes us into nothing more than the fly and the rat in these excerpts from Neil Peart's lyrics in "The Stars Look Down":