From outward appearances, what is happening in Washington makes little sense. President Barack Obama and members of both houses are pushing through "emergency" legislation that appears only vaguely related to real-world solutions.

As in the used-car lot, the deal must be completed now. There is no time to go through the usual political process of debate and consensus building.

The costs of these so-called solutions are staggering, even by recent Washington standards. Yet even proponents of these measures will admit that they have not read the actual legislation. At times, no documents are even available to lawmakers, let alone to the voting public.

To understand this, we must stop looking at the outward appearances. Consider the stimulus bill that passed earlier this year obligating the government to spend an amount roughly equal to one-third to one-half of the total federal budget. Even if the stimulus was a good idea, and that is highly debatable, there are several ways the government could have set up the stimulus.

For example, the same amount of money would have been added to the economy if the government had simply not collected payroll taxes for a year, or if they stopped withholding income tax from workers. Workers could then use the money anyway they wanted. They probably would have purchased more consumer goods, gone on vacations, paid off loans or maybe even bought houses, and there would have been no government overhead. The fed would have to borrow money or print it, but that is exactly what they have to do now.

The difference is who gets to control the process, and who maintains power of the purse. Do you and I decide how to spend our money, or does the centralized government decide?

Now consider the so-called "health care" legislations. The bill that Obama wanted passed last week essentially took the current problem in medical insurance and nationalized it. The current insurance systems are inconsistent, irrational, and overpriced. The government's solution was to create a nationalized inconsistent, irrational, and extremely overpriced insurance program.

This makes no sense until you realize that the core supporters of these bills don't really care what the legislations say. Insurance is simply a more palatable concept for American voters than the idea of socialized medicine.

The details of the health care bill, which have been made available to the public, show an attempt not to solve a problem, but to centralize power.

When the current versions of these bills run into problems, the proponents will be willing to compromise almost anything as long as the power remains in Washington. The details are not important, nor are the immediate impact on the nation's health.

So, what is important?

The answer is elementary … socialism.

The holy grail of socialism is control of a nation's health system. Why? Americans have been led to believe that they are free if they can say anything in public (unless it is politically incorrect) and if they can fornicate with any consenting adult of their choice.

To a large extent, even slaves have these freedoms. In actuality, a person is free if they can control their own property. If a person cannot do that, he or she ultimately can't control anything. A person's most fundamental property is their own body, a fact recognized by even radical socialists when it is in their favor (i.e., with abortion and sexual liberation).

Centralized medicine turns control of your body, and every behavior related to that control, including food, recreation, exercise, and other connected activities, over to the state.

You will also note that on one hand, socialized health care is said to be justified because medical services should never be restricted because a person cannot afford them, and on the other hand, socialized medical programs routinely deny health care to individuals (for example, the elderly) because it is too expensive.

What is the difference? Who controls whom?