Yes, President Obama Is A Smoking Hypocrite

There’s lots of hang-wringing over whether the President’s cancer sticks make him look hypocritical about the government health care he’s trying to ram through Congress so he looks useful.

Quite simply: he’s a hypocrite in the leftist usage of the term. Technically, being a hypocrite is saying that something is bad (i.e. smoking), but not really believing it’s bad, and doing it anyway–just precluding it for others. But technicalities don’t matter to the left, so let’s just say President Obama is a hypocrite.

Now, unlike the leftists, I figure most people with ideals are going to be imperfect with those ideals. In fact, perfection is nigh to impossible as humans are fallible–even those with high ideals that urge those ideals for everyone.

It is a horrible place to be culturally, to have the opinion that no standards matter because no one can 100% live up to them. Liberals know this, which is why the religion Antropogenic Global Warming is more a set of rules “good for thee, but not for me.” And they truly are hypocrites–they don’t really believe the world is going to end tomorrow. If they did, they’d actually modify some behavior. But liberalism is about the state being God and nosing into everyone’s life.

Enter Barack Obama and smoking. Currently, he’s trying to get health care legislation passed that would require me to pay more so that a guy like him doesn’t have to pay extra because of his upped chances of all forms of cancer.

The health care reform that President Obama seeks will become a vehicle for the state to manage everyone’s lives….well, everyone’s life but his. And that’s the problem.

It’s one thing to hold high ideals. It’s another thing for the state to mandate those ideals and have power over an individual’s life. That’s what will happen. How can we be sure that will happen? Well, it’s happening in Massachusetts right now. From the Wall Street Journal:

Natural experiments are rare in politics, but few are as instructive as the prototype for ObamaCare that Massachusetts set in motion in 2006. The bills for “universal coverage” are now coming due, and it appears the state political class is prepared to do lasting damage to one of America’s top-flight health-care systems.

Last month, Democratic Governor Deval Patrick landed a neutron bomb, proposing hard price controls across almost all Massachusetts health care. State regulators already have the power to cap insurance premiums, which Mr. Patrick is activating.

So, people with bad behaviors drive up costs, they are transmitted to everyone and the costs for care goes up, the quality goes down and people are stuck. In essence, bad behavior is rewarded and so more bad behavior happens. And smoking is a very bad behavior health-wise.

President Obama should be a paragon of health care virtue if he’s going to be talking about health care. He should be the one that lifts up the health, down trodden and not be a drag on the system. But smokers are a drag on the system.

Or, there could be individual choice. Like my diabetic patient said, “I’d rather die than give up drinking Coca-Cola.” Well, okay. That’s his choice. But his high healthcare costs should be borne by him in the form of sky-high insurance premiums. It’s only fair. Otherwise, what’s his incentive to change? As it is, he has none. He’s using sugar as a form of slow suicide. It is not a choice I would make personally–but it is his choice.

And it’s President Obama’s choice to smoke. He can smoke himself into oblivion. His life. His choice. Don’t get angry with me, though, because I believe he should pay for his choices.

Posted in Barack Obama
Tags: health care reform