Throw It Off Here and Now

Ben Gates: You know, of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others: 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.'
Riley Poole: Beautiful...I have no idea what you just said.
Ben Gates: It means the if something's wrong, those that have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.
--National Treasure

If you did not previously realize the extent to which Statism infects the GOP, then you should now be more informed. Conservatives have come out of the woodwork declaring that Republicans should not stand in the way of raising the debt ceiling or defunding Obamacare because the public will blame the GOP.

Others claim that they are with the Tea Party in principle, but not in tactics.

Right...and totally predictable years ago.

One proposal floated by Old School conservatives is that Republicans should just stand back and let Obamacare unfold. As the trainwreck piles up, people will realize that Democrats created the disaster and will consequently bear the brunt of people's wrath.

But this is just another variant of Statist thinking. Obamacare is a program of aggression. Standing back and letting it unfold makes you a party to force being applied to others. This is wrong.

Moreover, expecting that a poorly designed and implemented government program will be reversed once people see how bad it is seems extremely naïve. My guess is that some original opponents of the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and other socialist boondoggles had similar thoughts--let's just let it happen and they'll get the blame when their program falls flat.

The problem, of course, it that, once put in motion, bad government programs rarely get reversed. Instead, they become institutionalized. Once implemented, government programs become bottomless money pits, attracting ever more resources to protect and grow the institution.

No, the right thing to do is to do one's best to throw it off here and now.