ObamaCare is merely the natural extension of the welfare state we’ve evolved into over the past century. We now offer 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, which acts to discourage its recipients from seeking employment; affirmative action, which officially condones racism; a disability insurance program that’s an open invitation to fraud; food stamps for nearly 50 million Americans, including the young and able-bodied; an immigration policy that encourages foreigners to sneak into the country and become wards of the state; the unionization of civil servants, which means that those bureaucrats, whom it’s nearly impossible to fire, now make more money, have bigger pensions and better health care, than those of us who are forced to pay their salaries; and Social Security, which was a Ponzi-like con game from its inception.

In addition, we have a public school system that is more concerned with indoctrinating students than with teaching them. We have a mass media that sees its role, not as objectively reporting the news, but as cheerleading for socialism. Some of us still can’t understand how all of this has happened. We feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up and finding his nightmare was the new reality. The explanation is that like the frog in the pot, the heat was being turned up so gradually, we never noticed that we were the main ingredient in frog soup.

Adding to the downfall of America is a politically correct language code that makes even bruising some other person’s feelings a crime, unless, of course, it’s Obama and his stooges labeling law-abiding Republicans “thugs,” “arsonists,” “extortionists,” “bigots,” “haters,” “astroturfers” and “baby-killers.”

And just for the record, someone who does what he can to eliminate or exterminate the Affordable Care Act is not, as Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Durbin, would have you believe, an obstructionist. The word to describe such people is patriot.

It occurs to me when I consider the Constitution-trampling gang in Washington that includes, but is in no way limited to, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, Charley Rangel, Barbara Boxer, Sheila Jackson Lee, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Patty Murray, Kathleen Sebelius, Jay Carney and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hell will someday have to be expanded to make room for all the new arrivals.

How is it that in civilian life, people are always being arrested and charged as accessories to various crimes, but when every senior officer at Fort Hood turned a blind eye to the fact that Major Nidal Hassan openly proclaimed his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and jihadism, not one of them has been indicted as an accessory to mass murder?

Although the media takes great delight in focusing on fissures among the Republican ranks, I can’t help wondering how they will deal with it when Hillary Clinton starts to rev up her 2016 campaign. Clearly, she will have to separate herself from some of the more noxious elements of Obama’s reign. Those would include the looming disaster of the Affordable Care Act, his anti-Israel bias, his skyrocketing national debt, his coddling of Vladimir Putin, his betrayal of allies and his employment of IRS agents as his personal attack dogs.

One has to assume, though, that she will not be mentioning the massacre at Benghazi in any of her campaign ads or replaying her cold-blooded testimony (“What difference at this late date does it matter who killed them?”) in any of her TV spots.

Although I am much happier taking Democrats to task, honesty requires that I treat Republicans with equal disrespect when they ask for it. During a radio interview, Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, while discussing the economic recovery in his state, told talk show host Hugh Hewitt, “You know, there’s a biblical part of this. It’s called the Good Samaritan. You know, the Good Samaritan was hated in the Jewish culture.” For one thing, as non sequiturs go, that’s a pip. For another, unlike Kasich, I happen to be Jewish, and I have never heard a Jew say, “I don’t know about you, but a guy I really can’t stand is that big phony, the Good Samaritan.”

One thing that has surprised me about the disastrous manner in which the Affordable Care Act has rolled out is that Barack Obama hasn’t blamed it all on George Bush.

Not yet, anyway.

Author’s Note: Although I’m still seeking sponsors, my online radio show is on the air, every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. That’s L.A. time. Access www.latalkradio.com, channel 1, and click on Listen Live. You can also download to your iPhone or Android apps. The call-in number is (323)203-0815. I’d like to hear your questions and comments, pro or con. Especially pro.