The "one percent" we should really fear
By Richard E. Ralston
web posted February 13, 2012
There is a great threat to medical care in America from a small group of our fellow citizens. They are not the top one percent of the wealthy, but a group of elitists and their allies who see government power as the means to determine what every American is allowed to earn and keep. Control over medical care is central to their objective of imposing control over every detail of our lives.
The one percent of Americans who really threaten our freedom in medical care and everything else is a small and relentless cadre. They follow ancient precedent; Plato thought that "philosopher kings" should rule us (the New York Times agrees). They have since taken the form of Inquisition interrogators, witch hunters, Leninist enforcers of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," fascist followers of "the leadership principle," and the modern and most hideous manifestation: intellectuals. The latter range from moral exhibitionists in Hollywood to the political correctness police teaching in universities.
By contrast, the top one percent of wealthy Americans pay at least one third of the taxes--far more than their "fair share" by anyone's standards except those after power over others. The wealthy spend their after-tax wealth on what they buy from the rest of us, or they invest it. That is far more beneficial for the economy than what the government would do with the money.
Last fall, one columnist admitted that our Medicare and Social Security taxes, for several generations, purchased government bonds, and that Congress used the proceeds immediately on anything it wanted. She then complained that the "enemies" of Social Security do not want to "raise the income taxes that may be needed to honor that debt obligation."
But who were the real enemies in Congress, and what obligations to taxpayers did they honor? What would they do with new taxes for more government medical care?
How stupid do these intellectuals really think we are? After a lifetime of paying Medicare and Social Security taxes, we learn that Congress has blown through that money and wants to tax us again to pay back what they spent elsewhere. That is towering, majestic contempt for the American taxpayer.
Americans should reject intellectuals who exhibit such contempt for their intelligence.
Our greatest defense is the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. At some level, most Americans realize this. When any political elitist tells you he knows best what health care you and your physician should be forced to live with, make sure you tell him exactly what you think of that. When in doubt, just ask yourself, "What would an American say?"
We need to remain relentlessly on guard against the actual dangerous "one percent" and their foot soldiers in public parks. Do you want your medical care left to your own judgment and your physician's? Or do you want to turn your decisions over to those who--rather than go home at night and take a shower-- use physical obstruction and intimidation to "occupy" and replace your judgment with theirs?
A reporter once asked me why most Americans are anti-intellectual. That was easy, I told him. It is because most intellectuals are anti-American.
We need to treasure those intellectuals who still sustain the values of the
writers of the U.S. Constitution. We need more of them. 
Richard E. Ralston is the executive director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, Newport Beach, California. Copyright © 2012 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.