Ted Poe: “When I traveled to the old Soviet Union in the 1980s, nobody walked around smiling or joking or laughing. It was all…”

“When I traveled to the old Soviet Union in the 1980s, nobody walked around smiling or joking or laughing. It was all gloom, doom, and despair. Living under government tyranny destroys the human spirit, the mind, the soul, and the body. The monopoly of government kills off the notion of individuality. Bureaucracies have an insensitive cookie-cutter solution for everything. It's the same with government-run health care. Thomas Jefferson was a visionary. He talked about government-run health care. He said, ``If the government decides what foods people eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.'' Government-run health care pushes us down the road to ``we the subjects'' instead of ``we the people.'' Instead of us controlling government, government controls us. That's what tyranny is. The monopoly of government-run health care will have the efficiency of the post office, the competency of FEMA, and the compassion of the good old IRS. And that's just the way it is.”