Matt Welch on Why Big Government Is Offensive

Whether passing Medicare Part D during the GOP salad days of 2003, intervening federally in end-of-life decisions by Terri Schiavo's family in 2005, or creating the individual health care mandate in Massachusetts in 2006, Republicans have done their best to speed up government's slow-motion takeover of the health care industry whenever doing so aligned with the party's perceived interests and values. Alas, so have Democrats. In the very same week liberals and progressives were complaining about "theocracy" in response to a Virginia abortion regulation, they were busy waving away social-conservative complaints about ObamaCare's requirement that employers pay for contraceptive coverage regardless of whatever theological or philosophical objections they might have. The real lesson here, writes Editor in Chief Matt Welch, is that the faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values.