Back in the Reagan years, we spoke of a “domestic Brezhnev Doctrine.” The real Brezhnev Doctrine said this: If a country goes Communist, it will stay Communist. The Communist government is forever. The Soviet Union will defend it.

The Reagan Doctrine, of course, was conceived to counter the Brezhnev Doctrine: The United States will support democratic forces opposed to Communist regimes.

So, when we talked about a “domestic Brezhnev Doctrine,” despairingly or sarcastically, we meant, “Once a government agency or program is in place, it’ll be forever. The Democrats will defend it and prop it up till the end of time, no matter how ineffective it is. You’ve got to stop these things before they take root. If you don’t, you’ll never be rid of them.”

I thought of the domestic Brezhnev Doctrine the other day when reading a comment by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee. She said, “On issue after issue, Democrats have stood up for jobs, for the economy, for investing in education and health care. Those are the issues that voters are talking about. And Republicans have engaged in trying to take their health care away, to oppose the minimum wage.”

Listen to a few of those words again: “Republicans have engaged in trying to take their health care away.” The Obama program was implemented the blink of an eye ago: on October 1, 2013, right? Or January 1, 2014? Either way, the point remains: Do you mean to tell us that the American people did not have health care before the day Obamacare kicked in? Health care began only in the last year or so? To repeal the new law is to repeal health care?

DWS has supplied us a perfect example of the domestic Brezhnev Doctrine — at least of the mentality that goes with it. This mentality is no good for the health of free society.