Control and the Creation of the Committee of Public Safety

I'm finding Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical law quite prophetic.  It was written in the early 1970's, yet what he says is coming to pass in our day. 

His discussion of the 3rd commandment on the negative aspect of the law (i.e. the thou shalt not's) was a great section.  He says that the law must be negative in order to define evil (e.g. Thou shalt not steal).  For this reason the negativity of the law "is the preservation of the positive life and freedom of man." 

He then goes on to say:

But if the law is positive in its function, and if the health of the people is the highest law [i.e. the positive side of the law], then the state has total jurisdiction to compel the total health of the people.  The immediate consequence is a double penalty on the people.  First, an omnicompetent state is posited, and a totalitarian state results.  Everything becomes a part of the state's jurisdiction, because everything can potentially contribute to the health or the destruction of the people.  Because the law is unlimited, the state is unlimited.  It becomes the business of the state, not to control evil, but to control men.  Basic to every totalitarian regime is a positive concept of the function of the law.

Earlier in the same chapter he talks about the abolition of the police force by totalitarian regimes.  This occurs because police enforce the negative aspect of the law (the thou shalt not's).  Instead, police are replaced with "public safety officials" who enforce the positive side of the law.  One such example was seen in the Committee of Public Safety, who produced the reign of terror in the French Revolution.  Was that in the book 1984 too, along with the Ministry of Love?

All this is to say, we should be expecting the creation of public safety officials with the advent of our government run health care.  They must regulate your health and somebody has to be there to make sure you stay fit.