^People are scared. They want Obama to "fix" the economy and they don't see it happening. Instead of making the economy his top priority, he's engaged in making a series of drastic changes in the role of government. These changes could have waited a year or two until we see some form of sustainable recovery- NOT rammed through in the very beginning of his term during economic turmoil.^

This, of course, assumes the primary motivation of the Democratic leadership is fixing the economy rather than consolidating and making permanent vast new inroads of government power.

There's a good reason that nationalizing health care (or to be more precise, switching the current system onto an irreversible track to nationalized health care) appears to be the prime goal of that leadership right now. It's been the linchpin of statists for many years - access to a huge sector of the economy and justification for increased control over our lives at every level. It long precedes the other "cause of the day," climate change, although the motivations and end results are the same.

The power is the end. Health care, climate change, and any other major issue you can think of are the means. Have you EVER seen a solution from the government to any of these issues that did NOT involve more power and wealth gathered to the State, and less choice, wealth, and freedom for individual?

Look at proposed solutions for any given issue. Notice which ones the Democrats discard out of hand, and which ones are embraced. The one thing the former solutions all have in common is that they do not increase government power. The one thing the latter solutions have in common is that they do. I can give examples, but you can probably think up enough of them on your own.

This is the paradigm shift that is so difficult to get across in these discussions, and usually just results in hostility.

We need to get past the "how should we do it" and start looking at "why are we doing it."