Liberals love to misuse language to obscure their policies and plans for America. Government spending is characterized as “investment,” gun control is renamed gun “safety,” price controls are “cost containment” measures, and proposed legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in union elections is called the “Employee Free Choice Act.” And don’t forget the infamous “Affordable” Care Act that most likely will increase the cost of health insurance.

One of the biggest obfuscations is that Obama is a centrist. Liberals point out that a majority of Americans agree with Obama’s position on such issues as entitlements, immigration, climate change, and same-sex marriage. But even if Obama enjoys popular support on key issues, which is debatable in itself, it doesn’t make him a centrist. If popularity is the criterion, then a demagogue and socialist such as Hugo Chavez would also qualify as a “centrist,” as he enjoys significant support in Venezuela.

Obviously something is wrong with liberal reasoning when it can position someone like Chavez in the center. But even ignoring goofy liberal theories, our ideas of the political left, right, and center are worthless. It makes no sense to talk about left-wing and right-wing when both terms are used, for example, to describe authoritarian regimes. The salient point is that such regimes are authoritarian and a political spectrum running from “left” to “right” only confuses matters.

It would be more illuminating to think in terms of coercion and freedom, rather than left or right. If we do so, we quickly realize that left-wing and right-wing authoritarian regimes are not on opposite ends of a political spectrum, but are located next to each other on the coercion end. Located closer to the freedom end would be the various democracies, and the center would be between freedom and coercion. Although the U.S. is presently closer to the freedom end of the spectrum, the question is:  where are we going and where will we end up after the liberals have had their way?

The implementation of Obamacare gives us a pretty good idea of where we’re headed, and it’s certainly not toward freedom. Most people go to doctors and hospitals that are lo-cated within a few miles of where they live, so healthcare is a local activity. Yet Obama-care will place 315 million Americans firmly under the control of a central government. The resulting coerciveness, in a sector of the economy that accounts for almost 20% of the whole, will move the U.S. away from freedom and significantly past the center.

Healthcare isn’t the only sector that Obama is bent on centralizing:  indeed, we’ve al-ready seen him nationalize firms in the finance and auto industries. But Obama’s actions in healthcare and his preference for a single-payer system provide evidence enough to reject any claims that he is a centrist. Some argue that Republicans have supported aspects of Obama’s policies, but that doesn’t make Obama a centrist – it only makes those Republicans likewise authoritarians.