It is a tactic as old as argument itself. The person seeking to accomplish something he knows to be dishonest and unjust sets the parameters of the argument, and invites his opponent to debate the predetermined memes. If the debater does not first disown the false premise, and reset the terms, he has effectively lost from the outset. In the case of ObamaCare, the premise is that our healthcare system was irretrievably "broken." Congress had to step in and "fix" healthcare.

Of course, this was a ruse for the easy marks. No one but the utter simpletons among us believes ObamaCare was ever about healthcare or improving upon its delivery. One does not cure an illness by shooting the patient in the head. If the goal had been addressing certain imperfections, even assuming the government had a place in that equation, this could have been easily achieved with relatively minor modifications imposed upon the existing system. I do not advocate government intrusion, but we cannot deny that it has become an unfortunate reality. The less of it, however, the better.

The goal, as it always is with the left, is ownership of the citizenry. Before now, this was being accomplished in smaller increments. Restrictions and eventual recisions of Constitutionally protected individual liberties were accomplished with much less fanfare than ObamaCare, and much less scrutiny. The left's belief in the duty of the citizen to serve the state, indeed to become a serf of the state, has always been imposed by false premises. Unjust seizure of private property is accomplished through punitive taxation, under the false premise that the wealthy don't pay their "fair share". Redistribution to the left's preferred beneficiaries is achieved through welfare, supposedly meant to rescue the less fortunate. Who is heartless enough to argue the false premise that the "needy" should be deprived of help from a beneficent people?

As with all premises asserted by the left, there is a nearly complete lie, with just enough of a scintilla of partial truth that the leftist can feign integrity. Once the left has invested in a false premise, they will not abandon it on penalty of death, especially yours. In the case of ObamaCare, we see this reliably played out by the left's media tools challenging those on the right to propose ways to improve upon the mess that is ObamaCare, and offer solutions to the disaster unfolding before us. This is an unwinnable premise for the right.

To argue on those terms is first to accept that ObamaCare was ever necessary in the first place, so that it should be preserved by repair or improvement. This is the fundamental premise of the left's ongoing efforts in the media to buck up their reliably dim followers. Any discussion that does not proceed upon the premise that ObamaCare was necessary and morally justified is a non-starter for the leftist. They certainly cannot afford to admit that healthcare was merely the vehicle for their most aggressive embrace of socialism to date. They can't admit that they exploited the naivete of the most gullible among us to promise the impossible.

They cannot admit that it never mattered to the president or his fellow Marxists that millions of Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of "progress", if that's what you call the efforts of the few to enslave the many. He knew what he was doing, and what would happen, and he lied to ensure that the slow-witted would not catch on until it was too late. Time was needed to fully bait the trap, and guarantee the inability of the prey to escape.

They cannot afford, even now, with the lies of the president and his worshipers fully exposed, to admit that this defective law, and its myriad assaults on personal freedoms, was never about improving the delivery of health care. The premise is always the unquestioned good will and inspiring charity of the leftist.

If they can get Republicans, and others actually to the right, to adopt the premise that ObamaCare is about healthcare and good intentions, they know they will eventually succeed in the long campaign to trick the country into adopting socialized, government-controlled health care, even if some concessions are necessary for appearance' sake. They will have succeeded in protecting the holy grail of involuntary serfdom and government ownership of its people.

We see these efforts being played out now in interviews and performances by dutiful foot-soldiers on television and media. Republicans and conservatives are being asked what they propose to "fix" ObamaCare, and address the flaws with which they are so unfairly obsessed. They are never asked, of course, whether ObamaCare was ever the correct solution. The left's unyielding premise is always implicit in the theme and scope of the questions or interview: ObamaCare was the only solution, even if it wasn't implemented perfectly. In other words, the premise is that there is no solution, and never was any solution, other than an unprecedented usurpation of power and personal liberties that makes the citizens beggars to the government for their own physical salvation.

To discuss how to fix ObamaCare is to accept the lie of its necessity. To accept that it can be fixed, or that Republicans or conservatives should participate in doing so, is to become complicit in its preservation. Every elected Republican who speaks of delays, or fixes, or amendments, cancels his or her refusal to vote for this unconstitutional act of governmental betrayal of our founding principles. To accept and adopt an act of unabashed socialism is to condone, and be a supporter of, socialism. It is no different in effect than being an accessory-after-the-fact to a bank robbery. If one gives aid, support, and protection to a known bank robber, he becomes an accessory to the crime.

There are few opportunities given to the right to explain how the evils of this administration and its goals directly impact almost every citizen. The IRS scandal damaged conservatives, so non-conservatives looked away, choosing to ignore the bigger picture regarding what such abuse portends for all. Benghazi was successfully misrepresented by the media, so their base came to see it as mere political theater, rather than seeing the bigger picture of a president ensuring the preventable deaths of Americans acting on his orders. But ObamaCare has the potential to adversely affect almost everyone in a very direct, personal way. It will be hard to ignore the loss of one's own affordable, perfectly suitable healthcare.

Republicans did not destroy our effective healthcare system to cure it. They have no duty to rescue Socialists from their own stupidity, or malice. ObamaCare should be clearly spoken of as what it was, an attempt to place Americans in a position of final, irrevocable dependence on their government to make even basic decisions, particularly the most personal ones involving life and death. Republicans must remind the country that the president has made clear that his control of their lives is so necessary to his plans that he has said he will never allow this disaster to be cured. He provoked a government shutdown to emphasize this determination. They should never miss a chance to remind the country that this is a destruction of rights and freedoms that the right voted against, and would never have taken from them. Democrats, and only Democrats, saw Americans as so gullible and stupid that they could be corralled into pens on the basis of outright, unmitigated lies.

Rather than speak of helping Democrats out of the tar pit, Republicans should hold their heads under. Let the reality of Communism-Lite unfold for all to see and feel, with the message that this is only the beginning of the Democrat vision of the New America. They should remind people every day that what happened to them at the hands of the Democrat Party in five short years was no accident. Let it sink in without mitigating its impact too soon. The future of the country hangs in the balance. There are elections in a year. There is time to talk of alternatives, instead of how we can rewrite the nation's death warrant.

This is an opportunity for Republicans to fight to the death from the moral high ground at a time when it was needed most. It's time they fought as if they intended to win.