That Hideous Strength: C.S. Lewis foresaw Obamacare!

This past Friday, Nov. 22, marked fifty years since the passing of C.S. Lewis. Chances are pretty good you didn't hear about this important milestone as the mainstream media spent all of last week waxing eloquent over Camelot and John F. Kennedy. For most of our media elite, it's "C.S. Who?"

The drive-by media has sought to turn JFK into a saint, overlooking his numerous alleged affairs and sexual encounters, as well as ignoring his culpability of embroiling us in Vietnam. JFK sent the first U.S. troops to Vietnam, where there were 58,220 military fatal casualties in a failed war that had no reason, purpose or definition of victory.

C.S. Lewis

What the media elites missed is the lasting greatness of C.S. Lewis who has touched more lives in light of eternity, making JFK's brief 3 yrs as president like the fleeting appearance of a shooting star compared with the brilliance of a harvest moon.

Lewis foresaw the growth of Big Brother in our daily lives. His prescience characterized our present enslavement to statist efforts to destroy our liberty and freedom:

Two wars necessitated vast curtailments of liberty, and we have grown, though grumblingly, accustomed to our chains. The increasing complexity and precariousness of our economic life have forced Government to take over many spheres of activity once left to choice or chance...There is nothing left of which we can say to (our new leaders), "Mind your own business." Our whole lives are their business. (from the essay, "Is Progress Possible?") 

C.S. Lewis extolled the beauty of the freeborn mind. In his Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis hoped to immunize young people and their parents against the seductive power of a society run by technocrats who offer us hope, medical care, economic stability and permanent employment, if only we will become the "willing slaves of the welfare state." He writes:

To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death--these are the wishes deeply ingrained in white and civilized man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow. (from the essay, "Is Progress Possible?")

This passage is echoed in the description of the four Great Kings and Queens of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The reign of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy was a long and happy one, and one of the key features that Lewis highlights is that they "made good laws and kept the peace...and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live" (chap. 17, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe").

In the long struggle against elite statism and liberal "do-gooders" who know what's best for you and your family, we would be much better off as a nation if our president had spent more time reading C.S. Lewis instead of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."

It is no secret which author has had the greatest influence on our president and this administration. But for those who are fans of Lewis, we will continue to side with those in Narnia where liberty, freedom, peace, and good laws reside.