We don't do big things very well, anymore, do we?

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The glitches that have plagued rolling disaster that is the launching of ObamaCare and specifically that of the online exchanges through which an individual can purchase health insurance has resulted in a meme over the past couple of weeks within conservative and libertarian circles: this isn't so much about a website and it isn't so much about another entitlement program we cannot afford rather the failure of the online exchanges and which should scare the beejeezus out of statists everywhere is that this becomes an existential question of the sustainability and effectiveness of big government progressivism.



Here's Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit breaking it down in his latest column from USA Today:

As it's gotten bigger, the federal government appears to have gotten less competent. Apollo was a success on its own terms, but the big government policies that followed -- the War On Poverty, the War On Drugs, the War On Cancer -- have all been pretty much failures, sometimes disastrous ones.


Even Obama himself is evidence of this problem. His 2012 presidential campaign was famous for its mastery of technology, building up an electronic campaign infrastructure in just a few months that helped him win the election. But, of course, it wasn't a government operation. Obama without the government - a technological success. Obama within the government - a technological embarrassment. The difference between success and failure here, as even Obama-haters will have to admit, wasn't Obama. It's more likely that a political campaign has clear goals, and lots of freedom to improvise, while a federal program is much more encumbered by law and bureaucracy.

Whatever the cause, it remains indisputable that the federal government isn't very good at delivering on big projects. The obvious response is to not trust the federal government with big projects on which it can't deliver. Instead, they should be left to those who can.

Let's bumper sticker this, shall we: We used to put men on the moon, now we can't even build a website.





And we've noted a change of tune from our liberal friends with respect to ObamaCare in that they've gone all rule-of-law on us claiming its wrong, just plain wrong, to not be onboard with what is the law of the land.


Phooey, we say. Why should we be onboard with a counterproductive law that represents only a further incursion into our private affairs and which is proving already to be doomed to failure?




Here's George Will on "Fox News Sunday" responding to Juan Williams' lament that some folks were spiking the ball in response to the healthcare law's completely bungled rollout:

“Oh, it will end,” Will said. “Because in fact what they’re trying to do is micromanage one-sixth of the American economy. What we have learned throughout the 20th century is in fact the micromanagement, central planning of complex societies doesn’t work.”

“I want to assure brother Williams that there is no schadenfreude because I’m not even pretending to be sorrowful,” Will continued. “Of course I want Obamacare to fail, because if it doesn’t fail, it will just further entangle American society with a government that is not up to this. For 100 years, Juan, the narratives of progressives from Woodrow Wilson on, is that progress will come if and only if we concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch and more executive power in the hands of experts — disinterested experts such as those who designed HealthCare.gov.”

Brother Williams...? Dude.



But Will is exactly right. From the moment this thing became law, in case after case and example after example, it became apparent that the Affordable Care Act was proving to be neither about affordability nor care... only control from and by centralized authority in Washington D.C.


And back to our friends and our alleged incivility in not getting onboard with this legislative sham. We're old enough to remember a war in the Middle East that was entered into just over 10 years ago with bi-partisan congressional support but which was still railed against by a quite vocal and vehement opposition. Yes, dear readers, we're old enough to remember when dissent was patriotic and remaining ungovernable with respect to debacles like ObamaCare is precisely what we will continue to do.

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