The healthcare reform package—whatever it is, whatever it costs—is on its way through the Senate. We could look back on this week the way high school students do on the 1960s when the study the “Great Society” or the 1930s when the study the New Deal. This could be another instance of the collective nation making yet another giant leap towards the seductive arms of statism.

I could write about how undemocratically the legislation is being pushed through the Congress. I could write about Sen. Reid’s below-sea-level approval ratings. Or I could write about Pres. Obama overpromising and under-delivering. I could even go all wonkish and tell you why the bill will be bad policy.

I won’t.

Instead, I will phrase simply and succinctly my philosophical objection to the current healthcare bill: When government gets shoulder-deep in the healthcare business, it fundamentally changes the relationship between citizen and government. 

As columnist Mark Steyn likes to say, it changes the relationship of citizen to government to that of junkie and pusher.

The control given to government over healthcare is the catalyst for many other unforeseen types of government control.

For instance, if the government is paying my, or the bulk of, the healthcare bill, why should they not regulate what I eat?

My exercise level?

My fat intake?

My smoking habits?

My drinking habits?

How many children I have?

Nobody starts off wanting to have “death panels” or the like, but ultimately there will have to be some bureaucracy that does cost/benefit analysis whether we call them a death panel or “the happy fun group.”

This is not about hating Pres. Obama, poor people, reform, being in the pocket of the insurance industry or the drug companies—this is about hating an absolutely wicked piece of legislation. We can have arguments and legislation about real reform after we stop this monstrosity.

But it is our duty as concerned, active citizens and caretakers of this great nation to stand athwart Obamacare and scream “Stop!”