Road With No Exit

The other day I was about to get on Interstate Highway 94, but instead of a fast-moving freeway I saw two-lanes of cars sitting motionless all the way to the horizon. Because I refuse to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit, I pulled over and stopped.

I knew this particular stretch of highway well. It was the route I took back and forth to college when I was learning how to change the world. The next exit was too far up the road to hope for another opportunity to get off anytime soon.

I could follow the other sheep to slaughter where I would sit on the highway going nowhere for hours, or I could back down the entrance ramp and look for another way home. My wife, being the law-abiding type, strongly voiced her opposition to my exit plan. I like to comply with her requests when I can. I don’t advocate breaking the law –including traffic laws, but to add my vehicle to a monstrous traffic jam would have been irresponsible.

When I got off the ramp I noticed cars and trucks were leaving the highway in a slow parade and were now exiting the entrance ramp – kind of like walking down an escalator that is going up. I was pleased to see that others were also not content to just sit there, but instead chose to try and improve their situation. We may still have enough rebels in this country after all.

So after I got off the ramp I got on a beautiful back country road and headed in the general direction of home. We drove through several forgotten little towns with their distinctive identities; one had an old flour mill sitting serenely by a small river. We could even roll down the windows and enjoy the summer day without being blown apart by 75 mph winds.

It’s nice to have options: The option of what road to take, where to live, work, worship and how to control your own health care. But the freedom of choosing your own health care is under attack.

President Obama has been pushing very hard to get our country to adopt his public option for government run health care, that if enacted would eventually eliminate all other options. The proposal, over 1,000 pages long, is filled with rules and regulations concerning you and your family and how the government will wrest more control of your own lives.

I understand that the current way we pay for our health care is flawed – but let’s not reinvent the wheel just because the tire is flat. But when I see the pressure, the coercion behind this rush to take over our nation’s health care I keep coming back to the same question: Why? Why is there so much effort being extended to take over one-sixth of our economy? I believe it is because the government wants more power and control over our lives.

Try to exit that road once you’re on it. It would be slow, crowded, poorly maintained and stacked with toll-booths. Our health care would only go one-way – just like an interstate.

Within the past few days President Obama seems ready to temporarily shelve his idea of government-run health insurance. It appears that the voice of the American people may be making a difference. I guess enough people finally said “no you can’t,” and got off the Obama highway.

No one wants to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit.