Apr 8, 2017 4 min read

When I was a teenager, one of my teachers told me that I had Machiavellian tendencies. I was confused for some time, as I thought she meant Michelangelo and I envisioned myself painting the ceiling of the school gym.

I soon learned about Niccolo Machiavelli and read his most renowned book, “The Prince.” What I gleaned from his writings was that he was an objective observer of the European princes and principalities of his time. He was observing the actions of the conquest of various kingdoms and how the rulers obtained control over the people. These events took place in the mid-1500s as he traveled from his home in Florence, Italy.

I will rekindle my Machiavellian tendencies and apply them to Obamacare.

The American people would never agree to adopt socialized medicine. It would lose at the polls. And liberals know this. So how does the liberal Democratic Party achieve this feat? How do they get socialized medicine to become the law of the land?

First, you have to begin the process of bringing socialized medicine to the public with a “lite” version of health care reform. You have to lie about it, and say things like, “You can keep your doctor” and “The price will go down.” These all sound pretty good so far.

Then, you have to use words that Americans relate to, like “affordable care.” Who doesn’t want that?

“Millions of people are without health care. They need help,” they say. You have to make the process so complicated that no one knows what’s in the bill anyway. “You have to pass it before we know what’s in it.”

What?

Obamacare was designed to fail. It was backloaded with expense so that its price and structure were really not felt in the early years of its formation. But, come 2017 when its real costs start to weigh down the system and the entire thing starts to fail, now we have a crisis! As former White House chief of staff and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” But there was no “crisis” in health care, so liberals had to create a crisis to enable them to come up with a solution.

Hence, Obamacare was designed to fail in late 2017 and create a crisis throughout the country. The only problem was that Hillary Clinton was supposed to be occupying the White House then, ready to respond to this failure with – you got it – single-payer, socialized medicine for all.

In that scenario, Americans would accept socialized medicine as a fix to the crisis, and we would all accept socialized health care rather than no health care at all. The crisis would have been averted.

Liberals did hit a bump in the road when Donald Trump took the White House, a minor setback as liberals play the long game. He won’t be there forever.

We Americans willingly give up our freedoms every day in this country, and conform to anything to keep safe. Look what we have done since 9/11. We all willingly take off our shoes at the airport, are violated, and wait for hours to get on a plane.

The huddled masses, sheep to the slaughter, where is the courage of our forefathers?

Remember the story of the frog. If you boil water and drop a live frog in the hot water, it will immediately jump out of the pot to save its life. But, if you place a frog into a pot of mild water and slowly raise the temperature, the frog will boil to death and never move.

So, my fellow frogs, the socialistic heat is slowly rising and we don’t even feel the change in temperature. Before you know it, we are adrift in a society that looks more like fascist Italy during World War II than America.

Little has changed since Machiavelli observed the political maneuvering of the princes. The princes of yesterday wanted the same thing our liberal politicians want today – control over the populace. They think they can manage citizens better than we can ourselves. They seek to create a utopia of social justice for all. Like Karl Marx’s famous quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The only problem is the needs of politicians are always greater than everyone else’s.

Don’t take my word, learn from history, from Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Castro. How did those leaders work out for everybody?

Flickinger is president of Tom Flickinger & Associates, a management consulting firm.