This used to be a free country...

A cheerful assessment from Mark Steyn:

governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there's plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

More prosaically, it's also unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the US is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.

Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side...

It's tough to overstate the magnitude of what Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have wrought this afternoon. Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern said, "here must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said no." We passed that moment, apparently, in November of 2008, because the American people have been saying "NO" furiously, at the top of their lungs for at least the last nine months and here we are anyway. Too many people went to the polls and "sinned in haste," having now to "repent at leisure."

Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract

- T.S. Eliot

I wonder if Michelle Obama is proud to be an American tonight? Other than the abandonment of millions of Vietnamese to the communist north, I cannot think of a more disgraceful act by the United States Congress in my lifetime.

The United States of America may or may not outlive this mistake, but I don't expect that I will...