The Future of the Empire

This is what it will come to for fedgov in every one of its endeavors, ever-expanding failure as it increasingly tries to devour ever-greater segments of the population and economy:

With the website for the nation’s new healthcare program mired in structural problems that could take weeks — if not months — to fix, President Obama appealed to his supporters in a video Tuesday to join “Team Obamacare” and help counter the law’s critics.

Setting aside that it will not be fixed, even in months…Is the big-O calling for the brightest-of-the-bright tech minds to come join the party?

In the meantime, Obama reminds his supporters that consumers can buy insurance “the old-fashioned way” over the phone or in person. “That’s where I’m asking for your help,” Obama says to the camera in the video from Organizing for Action, the group that was formed from supporters and volunteers in his 2012 campaign.

The old-fashioned way?!?!?!?  Was this in the bill that had to be passed before we were supposed to know what was in it?

Obama asks OFA supporters to get out into their communities to assist individuals who need help signing up for coverage.

Door to door sign ups?  Manual labor?  In the greatest age of communication ever known to man?

This is the de-evolution of fedgov, in its most visible form to date.  Smoke signals in the age of instant, global communication.

“We won’t be able to reach everyone who deserves the safety and security of affordable health insurance without you,” Obama says. “Fortunately that’s what you do best: organizing. So I’m asking you to help tell your friends, families, co-workers, classmates, neighbors and anyone else about what the Affordable Care Act can mean for them.”

Perhaps they could hire the people who took the last census.  They already understand government-level productivity and technology, such as it is.

In recent months, Organizing for Action has sought to galvanize the president’s supporters around a variety of issues including climate change and gun control.

I am quite sure that OFA will fail equally as miserably in their new assignment as they have in the two mentioned above.

Wait a minute – they do have a technology plan:

For now, Organizing for Action officials are asking supporters to tweet about Obamacare and usher others into the effort by liking the Obamacare page on Facebook.

That’s the plan?  Hash tag Obamacare?  Yup, that’s the ticket.

Now, in all seriousness…as the government takes over more and more of the economy – both directly such as with this farce, and indirectly through regulations and other market interventions, price signals and profit-and-loss are less and less able to perform their necessary functions.  This leads to failure and breakdown.

We are living through the failure and breakdown in the greater economy.  Obamacare offers us the most visible fedgov failure and breakdown.

Those of us on this side often use the quote attributed to Mahatma Ghandi:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

With fedgov, it will be just the opposite – they won, as early as 1789.  They fought the people in 1861.  We are moving into the “laugh at you” stage.  Soon enough, as more failures become visible (broken promises of every sort), many will simply ignore them.