familiar fear mongering

Ahh, yes, Armageddon. This health reform bill will destroy our great United States of America. Does it sound familiar?

Here is Ronnie Reagan arguing against Medicare in 1961:
“The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.”

With an echo from Republican Sen. Carl Curtis of Nebraska in 1965:
“It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.”

And what about that terrible Social Security and all the many sins it will rain down on our country. Listen to Republican Senator Daniel Hastings from Delaware in 1935:
“I fear it may end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European. It will furnish delicious food and add great strength to the political demagogue. It will assist in driving worthy and courageous men from public life. It will discourage and defeat the American trait of thrift. It will go a long way toward destroying American initiative and courage.”

And now that we will be turning our attention to immigration, let’s not forget who we may be allowing to enter our sacred grounds. Let’s remember the prophetic words of Democratic Congressman Compton White of Idaho in 1943 on why Chinese nationals should not be allowed to immigrate to the United States or become U.S. citizens:
“I do not think we can take the Chinese with their habits and mentalities in this year and time into our great American melting pot and in ten years or a hundred years bring them up to our standards of civilization.”

And speaking of the Chinese, don’t forget that good ol’ standby threat – Communism, as expressed by the National Association of Manufacturers in 1938 coming out against minimum wage and guaranteed overtime pay (some of this may sound very familiar):
“[The Act represents] a step in the direction of Communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.”

And then there is Lee Iacocca, sounding very Ayn Randish in 1970 coming against regulations against airborne contaminants:
“[T]his bill could prevent continued production of automobiles . . . [and] is a threat to the entire American economy and to every person in America.”