John McCormack at The Weekly Standard writes:

That last part–”regardless of ability to pay”–is an endorsement of taxpayer-funded abortions, a policy that President Obama has personally endorsed. Obama wants Medicaid to pay directly for elective abortions, and Obamacare will allow beneficiaries to use federal subsidies to purchase health care plans that cover elective abortions. According to a 2009 Quinnipiac poll, 72 percent of voters oppose public funding of abortion and 23 percent support it. In other words, public funding of abortion–a policy President Obama actively supports–is as unpopular as banning abortion in the case of rape, a policy on which the media have focused their attention over the past two weeks despite the fact that neither presidential candidate supports it.

This is consistent with other actions we’ve seen this administration take. A majority of Americans also oppose Obama’s health care legislation. Not that this fact gave the legislation’s proponents pause. But this is all consistent with the party of leviathan, nanny-state government. As Chris Wallace pointed out after praising the technical merits of Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, there was a clear message:

“I’ve got to say, listening closely to the speech one of the things that struck me was it was all about government,” Wallace said Tuesday night during Fox News’ coverage of the DNC. “When she talked at the beginning about the people who exemplify the best of the American spirit, she talked about teachers and first responders and the military, all very admirable professions, but all government.”

He continued: “When she talked about ways to build the middle class, it was all about the auto bailout and student loans and health care reform, once again, all government programs…That was a subtle subtext to the entire speech.”

As Tom Crowe wrote about this morning, the promotion of choice — unless its one they’ve decided you shouldn’t be allowed to have — is just par-for-the-course cognitive dissonance for the party. To that end, Reason.tv headed out to the Democratic National Convention to ask attendees some questions about just how far their philosophy of choice extends. The results are predictably entertaining. Like watching a really uncomfortable game of Twister.

Even Jon Stewart lampooned Democrats this week for their message of “tolerance” while they found no shortage of epithets to use against anyone who disagrees with them. I struggle to understand how so many people in this country can try so hard to embrace utterly contradictory philosophies about freedom, virtuous action, and the role of government as an enforcer of good behavior. Forget school choice, nutritional choice, environmental choice, consumer choice, labor choice, etc. But if you want to have an abortion, by all means, proceed. And as McCormick points out, the Democratic party has moved to a position that favors unrestricted abortions on demand. The language of the platform indicates they have become complete non-interventionists on the issue:

The 2012 Democratic party also endorses an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand. According to the platform, on the issue of abortion “there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way.” In 2003, Obama was asked if he was pro-choice on abortion “in all situations including the late-term thing.” Obama replied: “I’m pro-choice.”

In 1992, then-Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tried to soften the party’s image on abortion by expressing his desire to make abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” Although the Democratic party platforms in 2000 and 2004 stated the party’s goal is to make abortion “rare,” the 2012 platform makes no such claim. “In 2000, the Democratic platform said the party’s goal was ‘to make abortion less necessary and more rare,’” Jeff Jacoby wrote in the Boston Globe last week. “The 2004 platform declared, ‘Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.’ But even calling for abortion to be ‘rare’ is now too much for the Democrats’ platform committee, which deleted the word in 2008.” The word “rare” did not make a comeback in 2012.

This, brought to you by the party whose delegates actually booed the amendment to the platform that reinstated language recognizing God’s role in the lives of America’s people. These are the times we live in. Good thing we have 6300% more bread and circuses to distract us.

...or I will make you.

K-Lo took the opportunity to point out the anti-choice, anti-freedom activities of the Obama administration happening under the authority of Obamacare.

But there’s another problem here. See, the other day Obama expressed her desire to “impact the nature of food in grocery stores” as part of her agenda to end childhood obesity in one generation.

Not only does she not seem to know that “impact” is a noun and not a verb, but she puts the lie to her own concern for protecting women’s ability to choose, while also affirming the notion that Dems think We the People “belong to the government.”

Think: the self-same individuals that Michelle Obama insists are “more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care” will be among those choosing which foods to put into their own mouths and their children’s mouths. Are food choices not related to “our bodies and our health care”? If they are, why the double standard? Either women are capable of choosing good foods for themselves and their children at the store, just as they are capable of making good decisions regarding abortion and contraception; or women cannot be trusted to make healthy decisions about the food they eat (among other decisions more, erm, visceral?) so we must limit the choices available.

Unless she wants to start arguing that abortion is *good* for women, like eating your vegetables and limiting portion sizes.

But she maintains at one and the same time: a) women should be able to choose abortion; b) women should not be able to choose foods with “too much” salt.

And she sees no problem with pushing both sides of that odd pair because she believes we all belong to the government.

If this election hinges on nothing else, it should hinge on the notion that one party thinks we all belong to the government (in any sense), versus the other party that believes “the politicians work for us.”

During the Democrat National Convention today a video played in which the speaker said, “government is the only thing we all belong to.”

Here’s the clip:

Urgh.

Lots of people went a little nuts over this line, and I can’t say I blame ‘em. But on this one I’d say that they’re protesting over the wrong thing.

If you listen to what the voiceover says, what he means is really more like “we all belong to this country club” rather than “all your yous are belong to us!”

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m okay with the line. It’s still problematic, just not for the reason most think.

Country clubs are voluntary, while involvement in the government in this country is not voluntary if you live here—even if indocumentado. Especially when we’re all expected to live the Life of Julia. shudder.

The Good Samaritan did not wait for the state to come by and help out.

See, the mindset that believes we “belong” to government such that the government is the primary means we are in contact with each other and help each other out conflates society and the state. We’re all members of the society of Americans, the people who are designated by “We The People” at the opening of the preamble to the Constitution, and while that society gives rise to the government set up by that constitution, it simply is incorrect to say we belong to the government.

We Catholics recognize this difference in our social justice. We recognize that we the people of society are morally obligated to help each other, but that does not mean we are required to do this through the agency of government. Indeed, according to the teachings of subsidiarity and solidarity, we are supposed to help people as locally as possible, relying first on our own efforts and those of the local community—e.g., neighbors and civic organizations—before ever looking to government programs. Relying first or even primarily on government as the explicit means to make “charitable” support happen is an abrogation of our duty. Through our history this has worked: the Catholic Church has been the world leader in establishing schools, hospitals, orphanages, social service agencies, and the like.

When government takes over social justice roles such as these it is because the society has failed to provide them organically. Even when government does take these over for disaster relief purposes—happenings which would tax the ordinary capabilities of societal social relief resources—that takeover should be temporary. That, at least, was the take of Blessed John Paul II in Centesimus Annus.

So this is the problem with what the Dems seemed to mean with that voiceover. They seemed to mean that the government presently in place precedes the society that chose it; that we are all members of the government first before we are members of the society. That we are member of the government before we are inheritors of the common history and the cultural legacy that gave rise to the government. That is exactly wrong.

It has always been wrong. The people do not “belong” to the government in any sense if it is a consensual government as ours is: the people precede and give rise to the government. When that balance legitimately goes the other direction there is a major problem.

It’s a typical problem of the Left: to identify state and civil society, have the state swallow the role of the society, thus blurring (at best) the line between what is owed to God and what is owed to Caesar, and see the state arrogate to itself powers and responsibilities that are not properly its.

Bottom line: I am my brother’s keeper. My responsibility for that does not end when my tax dollars go to supporting another program, no matter how much the government purports to do for my brother.