What you can and can’t have
Gerald Ford once observed that “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” Not everyone would agree with Ford but what about a weaker form of the statement? “Any government able to redistribute your money is able to tell you what do with it.” Now that the State is in healthcare it is talking about what you can and can’t ask your doctor to do. In detail. Should health care provide money for Viagra? Barbara Boxer makes the argument that if it does then it should also provide money for abortions.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Alright. Viagra is good and maybe abortions are good from Senator Boxer’s vantage. Now what about sex offenders. They’re people too? Shouldn’t Obamacare provide Viagra for sex offenders. After all people who’ve “paid their debt to society” shouldn’t continue to be punished by using health care as a weapon. Believe it or not the issue is being debated in the Senate, because unless sex offenders are specifically excluded, they’ll get Viagra too.
Senator Tom Coburn, MD introduced the following amendment. Politico says that the Coburn amendment is part of a Republican strategy to “use Senate procedure to derail the reconciliation bill”
(1) IN GENERAL.—Health programs administered by the Federal Government and American Health Benefit Exchanges (as described in section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) shall not provide coverage or reimbursement for— (A) prescription drugs to treat erectile dysfunction for individuals convicted of child molestation, rape, or other forms of sexual assault; or (B) drugs prescribed with the intent of inducing an abortion for reasons other than as described in paragraph (2).
(2) EXCEPTIONS.—The limitation under paragraph (1)(B) shall not apply to an abortion— (A) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself; or (B) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of forcible rape or incest.
But one man’s obstructionism is another man’s defense of liberty. Whatever the merits of Viagra for sex offenders and however you want to regard Senators Boxer or Coburn, it is clear that the culture wars have come right into your doctor’s office and living room. “Any government able to redistribute your money is able to tell you what do with it.” How does that proposition sound now?
Gerald Warner of the Daily Telegraph says that with the passage of Obamacare question of allowable individual behavior will descend into the very fabric of individual lives. The “leftward ratchet” is no longer something that happens in the papers or out on Capitol Hill. It is something you will have deal with daily. Twenty four by seven; year and year out you’ll be asked to give government just a little bit more power; just a tad more authority over your life. It’s a process that will happen even while you’re sleeping. So you better not mumble your assent just to hit the snooze button because the thing about the Leftward ratchet is that once you say “yes”, it’s forever. Mumble in your sleep and you’ll find the world will have changed just a little more since last night. Hanner writes:
The Obama healthcare coup d’état is naked Bonapartism and, as such, must be overturned. There will now be many siren voices telling American patriots and conservatives: “It’s over,” “You win some, you lose some” and “Time to move on.” That is the one thing they must not do. It is a phenomenon of leftist politics that, in true Leninist style, radicals never give up.
For example, when Hugo Chavez lost a referendum in Venezuela on extending his term in office, he held another 14 months later and won. When any member state of the European Union gives a “wrong” answer in a referendum it is forced to vote again until it surrenders to the demands of the ruling élite in Brussels. However, when a radical measure is passed by the left, the rules are the reverse. The leftward ratchet must never be broken. Conservatives have been trained in a mentality of quasi-Muslim fatalism: to change back to the status quo would be “retrograde”. Offering continuing resistance to the leftist juggernaut is termed “partisan”. Was there ever a more extravagantly partisan politician on the face of the earth than Barack Obama?
Ezra Klein, writing in the Washington Post agrees that it is indeed “time to move on”. On to final victory. He believes Obamacare was a tremendous victory in the culture wars and virtually rubs his hands in glee at the prospect of telling people what to do with the rest of their lives.
I don’t want to suggest this bill is all progressive victories. It isn’t. It isn’t single-payer and there’s no public option, and though I think the excise tax is a progressive tax, I grant that reasonable people disagree on this matter. But the fact of it is that this bill represents an enormous leftward shift for American social policy. It is not, in my view, a sufficient leftward shift, but it is unmatched by anything that has passed into law in recent decades. Progressives have lost some very hard battles but are on the cusp of winning an incredibly important war. For all its imperfections, health-care reform itself is deeply, deeply progressive. And if you don’t believe me, just ask the conservatives who have made opposing it their top priority.
There’s another word for progressive in its present day meaning. And that word is fascist.
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It’s all too depressing for me.
Get some decent Republican candidates out there for November, and wake me up for election day.
Yeah, someone has to bang the drum to wake up the candidates, and get the arguments sorted out for them, so you guys go ahead, and I salute your fortitude.
I think the biggest emotional difference between the two sides, whatever the the other differences, is the attitude toward telling others what to do. For some people, living means being able to tell others what to do. An existence without being able to loiter by the keyhole would be meaningless. The first type joins groups in order to get something done. The second joins groups in order to become the chairman of the committee.
Perhaps these archetypes existed long before Marx and Lenin, but 19th century European ideology provided the busybodies with an almost religious justification. This difference in temperament accounts for Hanner’s observation that the Left never sleeps; never gives up. The common expression “get a life” has a different meaning for some people, because busybodying is their life. George Washington like Cincinnatus, was eager to get back to the farm after bestriding the stage of history. Today it would be impossible. After Leninism, you couldn’t leave the levers of power unguarded for an instant. They would be out there, waiting, watching for that one opportunity. “Seize the day, seize the hour,” said Mao. He forgot to add “seize the second, seize the nano-second!” Don’t worry, it will come to that.
Powerlineblog reposted America Rising – they have had over a million hits for it since originally posting a few months ago:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025901.php
Just reported on ABC that the wait to see a primary Dr. in Mass. is now 44 days! Welcome to your new health care.
Some people’s concept of grass roots reform would be to stalk Ezra Klein and pull them up by their roots. A little weeding if it were. We are told time and time again that we are not at that point yet and I agree but there are those who think it would never come to that and I am not one of them. There is no way to reform these people with politics and their poison is life threatening. There are big thinkers in the world who say top down but there are millions of little thinkers who say; “go ahead” I’ll meet you from the bottom up. The only way to keep that from happening is to have the Police state that the Left keeps warning us about. One man one vote. No man, no vote.
Wretchard, I believe the Telegraph columnist is Gerald Warner, not Hanner. But it’s a great link and well worth reading.
I wouldn’t say that current conservative politics is completely ineffective, but at best it slows the leftward process down a bit. Until some essentially different strategy is formulated and used, the story will always be the same.
Perhaps these archetypes existed long before Marx and Lenin, but 19th century European ideology provided the busybodies with an almost religious justification.
If Lenin had been born a few centuries earlier, he would have been Torquemada. If he had been born in an Islamic country, where political and religious impulses are still fused, he’d be a mullah. In the West, secular ideologies replaced religion, but the desire of some people to control and coerce others remained. In fact, I would argue it got stronger, since the secular busybodies were and are unchecked by any sense of humility, of any idea that they too, will have to answer to God on Judgment Day.
44 days to see a family doctor. Massachusetts may be populated by eunuchs, but long before people in the real America have their lives put at risk by Obamacare, they will have taken their grievance to those responsible for the chaos. The political elite is unlikely to skate away from this mess the way they have with failing schools, deficits, corruption, failed energy policy. No. Delaying someone’s wife’s medical treatment will be seen in the same light that a householder sees a home invasion. I am incredulous that the Democrats do not see any risk of retribution. Not from me, of course, but from the real Americans.
9 ridgerunner
It isn’t just delays in getting an appointment with your doctor. Hillbuzz has a thread on job losses as a result of small businesses cutting staff to avoid the penalties imposed by HCR. A number of posters have commented about job cuts that are already happening:
http://hillbuzz.org/2010/03/23/question-do-you-know-of-any-small-businesses-that-are-now-going-to-cut-staff-to-avoid-the-rationing-bills-penalties/#comments
I think the biggest emotional difference between the two sides, whatever the the other differences, is the attitude toward telling others what to do.
Sharia law, the Taliban.
“Seize the day, seize the hour,” said Mao. He forgot to add “seize the second, seize the nano-second!”
“Quick Julius, grab the girl before she gets away!”
Or just, “Julius Seize Her!”
I luv the classics.
“Just reported on ABC that the wait to see a primary Dr. in Mass. is now 44 days! Welcome to your new health care.”
Funny, I didn’t see anything similar in main stream media reports or newspaper headlines last week…
Did this backlog magically appear since Sunday?
I wonder why the general public didn’t hear of this before?
It’s a mystery!!!
It doesn’t make much sense to me
Why knuckledraggers cannot see
That sex offenders are just people too
A little pill just once a day
A tortured child the price we pay
Preserving liberty for me and you
You right wing guys give me a pain
All hail Barack, long may he reign
He’s what this country needs and what it’s got
Next on the docket cap and trade
And let us call a spade a spade
Michelle is gorgeous too and just damn hot
In closing let me say Barack
Is taking our great country back
Back to its great beginnings and its roots
Soon you’ll see us marching proud
Horst Wessel Lied so clear and loud
The pavements ringing with the sound of boots
The reason they are called Liberals is that they have a liberal attitude about what constitutes enough. The reason they are called Progressives is that each victory simply means an opportunity to Progress more to the Left.
Look up the story “Lippidleggin’” again for a view of a future where personal choices are controlled ultimately by the government provision of health care.
Ridgerunner #9: Relative to the People’s Republic of Massachusetts wait for a doctor, I wonder if we will see an American policy like that of Great Britain. If you are a British citizen, have a serious medical condition of some kind, and wish to travel to the U.S. on vacation, you must first buy special medical insurance equal to twice the price of your plane ticket. The reason is obvious; don’t like the wait for care in the U.K., then travel to the States and get treated there at British government expense. So they have addressed this problem by coming up with what amounts to a special tax. If you are rich enough to go get treated in the States then you get to pay and go; the poor are stuck with socialized medicine at home.
Now what happens if US health insurance companies really do decide to cut their costs by providing care directly by means of their own clinics in places such as Costa Rica? Think they will be allowed to get away with it?
PA Cat #10: Interesting item I saw the other day about the effect of ethanol fuel subsides – job losses in a southern agricultural communities. It seems that corn is easier and cheaper to grow than cotton and farmers are converting over. That in turn means that the local cotton processing factories have less work and are laying people off, and the experts say that once they are gone the lost infrastructure will never be replaced.
The Hindenboxer strikes again. Google “hindenboxer” if you haven’t seen the ad yet.
PA Cat, thanks for setting me straight on the Warner link. Carelessness on my part. It’s fixed.
The reason they say “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is that there’s someone out there who wants to take it away from you. The will to power takes different forms. In the past it took the form of colonialism; or worse, reformism. In Australia there was a phenomenon called “wowserism”, supposedly an abbreviation of the slogan “we want social ills remedied”.
Today, the modern term for lout is “redneck”, “tea-bagger” or “Republican”. These are the new lost; the fallen. In place of the hymnbook you have the politically correct stylesheet. In place of the church on the corner, there is the temple of global warming. No veils or rosaries are wanted any more. Just sandals and organic food. There is a new damnation; a new salvation and above all a new population who must be saved. Colonialism didn’t end. It just turned inward. The British Empire was described as a vast form of outdoor welfare for the upper classes who needed above all to find people to order around. Fortunately for Britons of that era, there was an endless supply of “lesser breeds without the law” at the end of the sailing destinations. “No dogs or Chinamen allowed in this park.” The only question rednecks have to ask themselves today is whether they are the Chinamen or they are the dogs. A lot of European commentary on the Obamacare bill is unashamedly happy that ‘at last, America has become a civilized Western nation’ by which they probably mean, though they won’t say it directly that the natives finally they “know their station”. This passage, written by Mark Twain, expresses well the “progressive impulse”. It was composed at a time when the world was beginning to run out of darkies. And since then the focus of power has shifted ever nearer to hand. To the gentlemen Sitting In Darkness. And who are they? Why they are you.
So to all you gomers, rednecks, tea-baggers, googs and slopes, if you know what’s good for you say, “bwana”, please.
I am of the opinion that the entire American leftwing has gone completely crazy. Crazy in the sense of unmoored from reality.
“laser focused on job creation” Obama State of the Union address 2010
how many non-govt jobs did this health bill just eliminate?
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775. 225 years ago TODAY.
It’s come full circle, folks. Time to man up.
Wretchard:
If I may tweak the quote just a bit:
“Any government able to redistribute your money is able to tell you what to do with the rest of your money.”
“No dogs or Chinamen allowed in this park.”
Well, I had to laugh at that – people are the same everywhere – I’m told that here in Seattle it was common up until the late 60′s for waterfront bars to display the sign “No dogs or Indians allowed”
Apologies to all for straying from the political question of the moment, which is…
~ “The only question rednecks have to ask themselves today is whether they are the Chinamen or they are the dogs…”
Let’s hope we’re Chinamen, or at least Indians. Or maybe the best of both and more with a little something extra. That’s what I like to think anyway. As for “moving on” (am I the only one who’s laughing at the coincidence of terms? I didn’t think so) it’s all a matter of where you’re going. The tea-party movement is a beginning, but it’s not an end in itself. Otherwise it will be another SEIU and no more, no less.
The real substance of liberty is here, at the Belmont Club and elsewhere, in this conversation, in the modern equivalent of the Committees of Correspondence of old.
Good thoughts, W.
But conservatives, don’t give up heart. People like me are just starting the fight. I’ve been kind of a wallflower during this whole thing, not honestly believing that such a disgusting piece of legislation could pass. I spoke just tonight in the bar with another such independent who is just getting his fighting legs under him.
I live in a congressional district currently represented by a conservative Dem who voted against. I sent him an email tonight notifying him that I would never vote for a candidate of Pelosi’s party, but I could be prevented from sending $1000 to his coming opponent by his vote against ObamaCare combined with what I presume to be his vote against any kind of cap-n-trade legislation, cleverly disguised or not.
I encourage anyone else represented by such a malleable congresscritter to do the same.
When a felon’s not engaged in his employment
Or maturing his felonious little plans
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man’s
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty’s to be done
Chorus:
Ah, take one consideration with another
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
When constabulary duty’s to be done, to be done,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, happy one.
When the enterprising burglar’s not a-burgling
When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling
And listen to the merry village chime
When the coster’s finished jumping on his mother
He loves to lie a-basking in the sun
Chorus
http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/pirates/web_op/pirates24.html
“The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Duty”
Written by W. S. Gilbert
Composed by Arthur Sullivan
First performance December 30, 1879
No. 24: SONG (Sergeant & Chorus)
“When a felon’s not engaged in his employment”
Today, the modern term for lout is “redneck”, “tea-bagger” or “Republican”. These are the new lost; the fallen.
Yes, but t’was ever thus. In the 1960s it was the Birchers. In the 1770′s Rousseau saw the virtue in the state of nature and all sins in the nobility. “Progressives” as a matter of course assign all virtues to themselves, and all malignancies to those who aren’t them, primarily to anyone who actively opposes them. Gives progress a bad name.
Health care so easy a caveman can do it – someone scratch that on a cave wall, shoot it with your phone cam, and fax it to the RNC right away. And stand by for the suit from Geico – free publicity is what you call that.
The demons are already in my house. If you live in America, they’re in yours, too. Let me explain. I’ve had to replace major components during the past few years, namely:
1) Furnace/Air Conditioner
2) Hot Water Heater
3) Washer & Dryer
4) Gas Range
5) Refigerator
In every case they old standby designs that are proven, that make appliances like these which last for 10-20 years, have been thrown out. In each case every product I bought was an entirely new redesign to meet some regulatory need. This made it twice as a expensive as it would have been 10 years ago. Also, the new designs have proven problematic. The hot water heater stopped working soon after I bought it. I had bought a 10 year warranty, only to be told that in order for repair to happen I had to upgrade the unit (not covered by warranty) to comply with even newer, more stringent regs that had come out. Upshot: it was cheaper to buy a new unit. Same damn thing happened to my furnace.
Soon, the $5 light bulbs will be inescapable
The demons are also in my car. I have a 1976 Ford as well as newer model car, and sometimes I open the hood on the old truck and marvel at the beauty and practically of the old system — one I can actually work on. The new car? Let me say that today I read the Feds are now seriously looking at the possibility that cosmic rays are causing Toyotas to accelerate uncontrolably. I’m simply not able to make something like up, it’s gotten so crazy.
God help you if, like me, you live under the tyranny of a “homeowners association,” an inescable group of petty tyrants invariably run by a bunch of leftist activits these days, as mine is, who think nothing of usurping your property rights. In fact, I doubt the notion of property rights ever crosses their minds all. No, I know that to be true.
These demons are in my house, and in my car, and they are in your house and in your car. Now, they have gotten in between you and your health care even more completely. They were between you and your doctor before, but they agonized there over facing some basic checks. Now behold the glee from their new sense of having been unleashed.
They will wreak havoc here, as in the other realms they’ve contaminated.
And, when they’ve got control of your health care, they’ve, quite literally, got you by your balls.
I don’t see why Viagra should be considered a right. It’s a privilege.
There are quite a few men in this world who can do just fine without Viagra.
Oh dear Josh please allow me to caution you on that potentially dangerous regard for Rousseau ~ be not deceived, he is an interesting – indeed brilliant – mind but a socialist in spades. His essay on the theater tells you all you need to know…
@25 Cowboy
Amen to that… there’s a reason why the old Singer treadle sewing machines are held in such high regard
Viagra should be outlawed and it certainly should not be covered under insurance of any kind. The little blue pill interferes with breeding out biological-duds and natural selection.
If you are impotent you probably have a bad ticker, poor circulation and a host of other ailments and most certainly should not be given magic elixirs to hoist up your ability to breed.
If nature does not allow you to get it up. Maybe you should just accept that and learn to crochet or golf.
marymcl – um, I didn’t say anything very nice about Rousseau there, do you think he had a valid point about nature and/or the nobility? I don’t. Neither did Hobbes – “nasty, brutish, and short” was his response, and it works for me.
origin – viagra isn’t much used for breeding, at least much less so than, say, beer. I’m not sure it makes much sense for the taxpayers to be buying it for anyone, let alone pervs. see what kind of trouble you get into, trying to legislate all of the health care system? will Obamacare buy marijuana for all the medical users in California? holey moley.
14) RWE,
THere is already a pretty big crossover of people from San Diego into Tijuana for dental and orthodontic care.
Josh-
As I read it, you were aligning Rousseau with the right, as opposed to the political elites of the present day, and I apologize if I have misrepresented your point. As you put it @29, we are more or less of the same mind (though that still allows for a variety of choices in which we may or may not agree) Anyway I’m sorry if I misunderstood you
Nevertheless FWIW Rousseau was wrong about a lot of things but he wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot. And Hobbes’s point is taking a rather long view of things, and too depressing all by itself to live by, however obvious it may be.
Okay guys,
Nobody is really serious yet.
I haven’t heard the word “recall” once.
To heck with repeal. Let’s recall the sob’s.
If we can’t muster enough votes to recall them, then we are truly outnumbered, and in a democracy, that means the end.
Programmer, in my state at least (Virginia), it is not possible to recall a federally elected offical.
In fact you can’t even recall state officals. You can get them into some kind of special trial, but I can’t remember this ever happening.
There are quite a few men in this world who can do just fine without Viagra
A sex predator who wants viagra so he can molest someone is really looking for trouble. That’s just like a guy who asks for a key into a lion’s cage or a dude who’s looking for a wrench so he disconnect the steering wheel while driving down the highway.
There’s a problem, but its not the viagra or the key or the wrench. The difficulty is that they’ve got a pre-existing condition that makes the requested help a doubtful thing. In the UK they deny kidney transplants to drunks; they deny fat removal operations to compulsive eaters. It’s not true that a socialized system of medicine doesn’t discriminate between people who have pre-existing conditions. They do, but achieve the result in another way.
So in socialized systems they wave you in the door and leave you there. Don’t fit the guidelines. Come back next year. Ultimately a medical service delivery system allocates its resources, not by price then by bureaucrat. “All true stories end with the applicant in front of a desk behind which a man who decides their fates sits, and it’s dishonest story teller who keeps the fact from you.” Hemmingway said that once in another context about bulls. Same old, same old.
32. programmer:
To heck with repeal. Let’s recall the sob’s.
—————-
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Laws_governing_recall_in_Colorado
Colorado is one of nine states with provisions that say that the right of recall extends to recalling members of its federal congressional delegation, but it hasn’t been clear whether federal courts would allow states to actually recall their federal politicians.[1]
————
http://tinyurl.com/ljc7zx
wretchard 2, 16; rwe: The fact that the Progressive is constitutionally unable to stand the temptation of a micro-second’s lapse and must make a grasp at a lever of power, renders him forfeit of basic liberty. There must be trials and jail time for people who would willfully and treasonously use their elected power or other position of authority (like a tenured radical) to undermine our republic.
And if he makes a jailbreak: I’ll join Whiskey, subotai, and Habu for some liberal target practice!
As a native Californian, I shudder at the Boxer. You fully expect her to start drooling and flapping her lips. She’s too stupid to put on trial. My german shepherd makes her look like an idiot. I’ve been in neighboring Arizona over 20 years now: it’s not perfect, but it’s not frickin’ embarrassing! What they have come to over there!
Hey! I’ve got Ronald Reagan’s signature on my Cal diploma! Eat your hearts out, young ‘uns!
Cowboy @25:
I agree, over regulation is killing western civilization.
1) Move out to a small town or suburb with no HOA.
2) Have a well dug, pump your own water.
3) Set up a septic system and don’t tie into “public” utilities.
4) Use solar panels and low voltage low current appliances made for RVs and yachts to get yourself completely off the grid.
5) Get a back up diesel generator and few hundred gallons of emergency diesel fuel that you treat with a biocide agent.
You don’t have to do it all at once. Each step is expensive.
Freedom isn’t free!
Be Prepared!
Gee that all sounds awfully presumptuous of me! I apologize for lecturing. I have similar feelings, and now I’ve shared my plan. So far I’ve only accomplished steps 1, 2, 5 and part of 4.
Good luck in your quest to get out from under Nannies vicious boot heel.
marymcl – no, no, Rousseau is the soul of the left, and of the French Revolution, and The Terror. “The people cannot be wrong!” is perhaps his best line. It is jealosy of one’s betters, and a self-righteousness intended to outshine that of the nobility or royalty, when what is needed is something else entirely, appeals to principles, justice, or God, rather than self-anything.
Sure, no doubt the man was “smart”, in a nerdy and totally mistaken way. Who does that remind us of, anyway?
Sorry if I stated anything suggesting otherwise.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LC23Dj04.html
no good news
By 2014, International Monetary Fund official John Lipsky remarked March 21, the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of the Group of Seven countries will reach 100%, and the governments of the industrial world will carry the highest debt burden since shortly after the end of World War II.
Josh, Montaigne would have been more acurate, he preferred paysants to University rectors !
Alexis, Viagra was a dopping for racing cyclists before being a drug for impuissant men, it dilates lungs, and penis: this why you see cyclist wives at the “arrivée”, uh, some need to empty their protuberance
otherwise, still up to the seventies in UK you could find “no dogs and no French allowed”
#32 programmer:
Of the states that have recall provisions for Federal elected officials, none have ever carried the process through. There is a test case going in New Jersey for Senator Menendez. He sued to have the collection of recall signatures halted, and in a sudden fit of constitutionality their Supreme Court actually ruled that until the petitions are certified and there is a question of whether to have the recall election, the Senator was stuck. I expect some tragic accidents to happen to the members of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Once a recall election is set, Menendez will go to the Federal Courts to have the right of recall tossed out. And we will see how long it lasts. If we ever are governed by a Constitution again, it should be amended specifically to allow Federal recall.
Subotai Bahadur
Josh-
Yes, jealousy and self-righteousness – that’s it exactly. And I’d never considered the comparison with Obama, but now that you mention it…. (though we may be giving himself too much credit)
talk talk talk
reconcile yourself to another lost Liberty
forget it all in 6 months
rinse and repeat
Subotai #40: “If we ever are governed by a Constitution again, it should be amended specifically to allow Federal recall.”
Suggestion for such an amendment: any representative or senator whose vote on any bill is at odds with any of his/her campaign promises is automatically immediately disqualified from office. You’re fired! Security will now escort you from the Capitol and bar your re-entry forevermore.
Hey, there’s gotta be some way of keepin ‘em honest.
Accountability.
marymcl; Josh: Rousseaus reputation seems to have suffered unduly because certain undesirables made a cult of him, or more precisely of some passages in his writings.
In the same manner in more recent times some of Sartes rants (inferior to Rousseaus writings) were the inspiration for the Khmer Rouge holocaust in Cambodia. (See “Intellectuals” by Paul Johnson.)
No doubt both men would have been appalled at what was being done in their name.
IMHO Rousseau was close to a valuable if not invaluable insight but never quite got there.
Namely that the rights of man exist both in the state of nature and in the more advanced civil society. However, his ability to secure said rights was far superior in the latter rather than in the former. And so was his ability to trample on said rights.
Couldn’t have one capability without having the other.
Had Rousseau gotten that far (and had he been a more stable individual?????) he might then have made the connection between authority and responsibility and avoided his flights of fantasy in search of the utopia that can never be.
Just my thoughts, folks, just my thoughts.
marymcl: Thanks for giving me another opportunity fer a yarn. Ever read Thoimas Cahill’s “How The Irish Saved Civilization”?
Inspired by that tome now comes the following;
In some medieval Irish Monastery, the monks were busily saving civilization by copying those surviving documents of learning. A youngish monk who had been on the job a mere year or so approached the Abbott:
“Father, I notice that we make several copies of everything”.
“But of course”, replied the Abbott. “Heaven Forbid that God’s Creatures should ever have but one surviving document again”.
“I understand that Father, but I also note that we copy the copies. Now if we made a mistake to start with, would we not be making the same mistake over and over again?”
“I never thought of that. I’ll check it out.”
Three dqays later they found the Abbot crying his eyes out. The original document said “celebrate”.
I have discovered Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 1998.
I am suddenly much more hopeful that the bill may not survive.
Dave, you’re right, lots of persons misread Rousseau, (or more accuately never they never read him but listened to the sirens that condamned him in the reading of the boring Burke
For Sartre I’m not aware that he inspired Pol Pot, but he was a worshipper of maoism at the epoch when it was fashionable for the liberal arts students to wear the red booklet, as far as Sartre is concerned,it was more becuz he was getting a bit senile, and that he still wanted to keep the image of the intellectual youth guru ! But already, this youth was further than him in the “imagine” world, with Kerouac and also Lacan Bourdieux, structuralism… were attracting interest, while Sartre belonged to the old guard of the communist unionists.
Marie Calude: FWIW, the Texas State Board of Education, an elected body, has recently been in the news for having purged a bunch of politically correct nonsense from the history books. However, Rousseau is referenced in the passages about European enlightenment thinkers who helped shape American thought in our formative years. Others include both Aquinas and Calvin. So there seems to be some appreciation of Jean Jaques actual role rather than his imagined one.
Urban B @47:
I was trained as an engineer, not a lawyer. Why does Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch give you hope here?
People could opt out of getting electricity from a Pennsylvania utility and use kerosene lamps instead.
We can’t opt out of healthcare entirely unless we’re suicidal. Also, this was a public utilities commission vs. an electrical utility, was it not?
I don’t see the application to the U.S. government unconstitutionally requiring citizens to purchase something they may not want at what is effectively gunpoint.
Please educate me. What am I missing?
Armageddon Rex,
We can’t opt out of healthcare entirely unless we’re suicidal
Actually, the Obamacare and suicidal is purdy close. So, it boils down to if you want your suicide state-assisted or not.
You know, how it was before… you could shop for your insurance, depending what you thought you need, what you could afford. Or none if that was your choice. I know people that haven’t seen a doc their whole life (about 20% of men).
heathermc@17
I am of the opinion that the entire American leftwing has gone completely crazy. Crazy in the sense of unmoored from reality.
I just read David Brooks on Health Care Reform. And I ended up wondering, “Is this guy nuts?” The way he writes about it he wants you to know that he knows the law is awful, how it was put together was awful, and it will land the country in the toilet. But at the same time, it is all very wonderful, too, wanting to “give” health care to the people! And he seems confident that a Democrat hand won’t reach up out of the toilet they put us in and pull the flusher. I’m not so sure. I think they put it on an automatic timer.
The Article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/opinion/23brooks1.html
RWE @14 Now what happens if US health insurance companies really do decide to cut their costs by providing care directly by means of their own clincs in places such as Costa Rica? imho places such as Cleveland Clinc will become private clubs with an annual membership fee for its clients and then charge a fee for service. No insurance, no govt. If it doesn’t work here they will just have the member fly to their clinc in the middle east.
The liberal threats are starting early. While performing some electrical work in one of those of High School-Adult Ed buildings in Southern California a Kid complained to the Unionized Teacher that he did not like the idea of government taking over health care because he was an ADHD sufferer and was happy with his private doctor (I assume that having a psychological disorder of that sort would be socially degrading and a private matter). The teacher first gave him the line that the kid could get out of government health care if he used “religious reasons” as a loophole. The kid did not believe the teacher and reiterated his dislike for government health care.
The teacher became angry and then stated: “If you don’t like government health care then just take a cyanide pill and that will end all of our problems.”
I found that to be a self-serving statement from a teacher who was getting his paycheck from the government (a net tax user). I expect to hear more of the same “Kill yourself and save the rest of us a lot of money” argument in the future. And, yes, it is a true story.
I also believe an amendment should be added that says that no chronic user of marijuana (legal or illegal) , tobacco, alchohol or other illegal drugs or intoxicants can receive any free healthcare past the determination that they are a chronic user of same. Also no health care for the morbidly obese.
I don’t agree with government paid healthcare but if this is what they want then this for sure is what I don’t want to pay for. In fact I intend to start walking up to morbidly obese people and telling them to lose weight so I don’t have to pay for their healthcare.
Armageddon Rex @50:
It was a utilities case, but in that case (decided 8-0) there was a ruling on the of rate regulations the state may impose on the utility companies. Yesterday I had heard about Section 2718 of the health care bill, and how part 2 might put private insurance out of business altogether well before the 2014 mandates kick in. It’s pretty terrifying stuff. So I dug a little deeper and found this:
“In addition, the decision to order rebates in good years without adjustments for the losses in bad years makes it impossible for a firm to earn a reasonable rate of return. In utility rate regulation, it is not constitutionally permissible to impose an annual rate cap just at the competitive level, while leaving the carrier obligated to eat the losses in poor years. Section 2718 of the Reid bill goes even further than such unconstitutional provisions in the utility context:[3] it imposes a hard cap, without any accurate accounting for administrative costs or any explicit recognition of the constitutional right to earn a reasonable profit.”
The whole thing is here:
http://www.pointoflaw.com/columns/archives/2009/12/impermissible-ratemaking-in-he.php
So, if the government cannot regulate a utility’s rate structure in such a way as to make it impossible or impractical to earn a reasonable profit, then the regulation is unconstitutional. Again, SCOTUS ruled 8-0 on this. (Would Chuckie consider this ‘super precedent?’) So if a UTILITY is given this protection, would not a private company? (Even though the insurance companies are now, essentially, national utilities… another possible constitutional violation, but I have not seen that argument yet.)
Based on this, I believe the individual mandate is not, in fact, what will make this bill unconstitutional.
38 rex: also add hounds.
I would like to remind everyone that the german euthnasia project started with their veterans from wwI, before it progressed to include the other infirm, enfeebled, undesirable, and expen$ive burdens on their state provided “free” healthcare system.
The current template seems strangely familiar. Kinda like I’ve heard this story before.
Richard #53:
In Canada they made it illegal to do that, practice medicine “off the national healthcare grid.”
That has not stopped doctors from starting private pay-for-service clinics – including the head of the Canadian verions of the AMA – which has produced complaints that this is reducing the services for people who get it from the government.
And that attitude is here in the USA – it is wrong for someone to get better medical care because he can pay for it – the essence of socialism is Militant Mediocrity.
Everyone will be equally worse off, enforced by attack helicopters and tanks.
We will “Progress” to the point that private medicine will be increasingly hard to practice and then finally, criminal.
Let’s stop talking about making accomodations with this, amending or improving upon it. That’s acceptance. I don’t accept this. It was a political coup–we are now slaves of the state–and I want my freedom back. Where do we sign up to fight this?
Rudyard Kipling, 1919
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Terror, check. Slaughter, check.
Coming to you in 3-D (reality) check.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
Where can I sign up to be Amish? They’re excepted from having to purchase insurance. Christian Scientists, too. I predict these will become America’s fastest growing religions.
Puzzled over health care? Ask Lenin’s question, “Who — Whom?”
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/intellectually_insane/puzzled_over_health_care.php
Religious people are essentially pious. They live under the canopy of God’s will. One nation under God, first and foremost, etc.
Marxians are essentially interested in power that will enable implementation of the project.
Marxians must therefore destroy religion, and the traditional values resulting from religion.
If you read the NYT leading up to the Takeover Bill, you would see lots of stories about Church sex abuse scandals in NYT and the racist behavior of TEA partiers in DC and elsewhere. The NYT and MSM present religion and traditional values as atavistic and beyond the pale, i.e. needing to be fenced back in to the Pale.
More Rousseau – The Social Contract being a fine idea, except that where he went with it is the “freedom *from* hunger” direction, sort of anticipating B.F. Skinner’s “beyond freedom and dignity” by two hundred years.
But yes, we all honor some form of social contract – and this is exactly what the jihadis do NOT honor, and why they have no rights at all under any rational system. If we choose to grant them certain rights unilaterally or for our own theological or other reasons, well, that’s as may be, “laws of nature and of nature’s God” and all that.
Don’t recall that Rousseau mentioned health care.
Not very prudent of Ezra Klein to rub it in so blatantly. His remarks should be circulated widely to stoke as much anger as possible.
1. Josh:
It’s all too depressing for me .
Buck up lad. When Washington took Trenton he was on the very eve of losing the enlistment of his entire army, a small band at that. He convinced them to stay and fight the fight.
They prevailed, we must prevail or all who have gone before will have done so in vain.
….also the speculation that ACORN is disbanding. Not.
ACORN will be transformed into the brown shirt “internal police” that obama has promised us. They along with other Marxist factions will coalesce, then acquire powers circumventing every freedon we have guaranteed under the Consitution and the Bill of Rights.
None of you are going to do anything. We’ve unfortunately lost. But all this talk of this or that, repeal, and vote the bums out…. doesn’t mean squat. You’re burning your energy writing blog comments hoping for something. It aint gonna happen.
If you wanna do something, quit paying taxes, or go on strike. The government can’t work without your money. The government is not afraid of you, so unless you got better ideas, enjoy your dependence.
I too wish to be Amish. If you find out where to sign up let me know.
I hope they have a “reformed” branch.
Yesterday in the store we had a person from Calgary. My partner asked what he thought of medical care in Canada.
He said it was very good.
Which I have no reason to doubt.
He did say that access was a problem.
With a straight face.
Is the U.S. getting its first step towards a French Social security system scheme? Is it a viable solution for the U.S considering its history? Are U.S citizens ready for giving the government the authority to redistribute their own money?
A lot of European commentary on the Obamacare bill is unashamedly happy that ‘at last, America has become a civilized Western nation’ by which they probably mean, though they won’t say it directly that the natives finally they “know their station”.
George Orwell, as Eric Blair, once wrote a short piece, Shooting an Elephant (http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=606), in which he relates a true account of himself in the colonial constabulary in Burma. The story was an accounting of the emasculation of the Burmese by their colonial masters. Blair (Orwell) was the only one with the authority to shoot and kill a rogue elephant in his area of jurisdiction, as the Burmese themselves were forbidden to do so. In this or a related piece, he points out that the ethnic Burmese were not even recruited for the native colonial forces; rival ethnic groups were given that priviledge intead.
Shall we be like those Burmese of some 90 years ago? Not only are we looking at being micromanaged on our doctor visits, but we will face severe restrictions as to where we may fish (recreationally), what we may say, when and where we may have a cookout, whether or not we’ll qualify for water for our crops if we don’t “obey,” etc. We’re also facing the prospects of being inundated with a vast horde of new “citizens,” the majority of whom couldn’t care less about that priviledge, and would just as soon be Mexicans on extended leave. Medical school schlarships wil be given out in huge disproportion to minorities, and on and on.
Urban B @56
I’m still not convinced the current supreme court will apply Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch as pertinent case law for this application. In was a state public utilities commission setting limits on an electrical utility within that state.
In our catastrophe, the congress of the U.S. voted a new federal law into place.
I don’t understand why you believe Holder won’t argue, successfully, that article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes the cases entirely different.
I’m concerned that no federal court will give anyone “standing” to bring the lawsuit to the bar until people start “benefiting” from the government mandated major changes four years from now.
Hell, it took forever to find a federal court that would even hear arguments about Barry’s birth certificate.
I apologize in advance for bringing that up, and don’t wish to derail the thread with that debate. I just wish to point out that sometimes having “standing” to bring a lawsuit is a significant part of any legal struggle.
Why will the states attorneys general have standing in this case?
It’s interesting that while they’re still debating Viagra for sex offenders on the benefit side of the ledger, they did think things through in enough detail to grant exemptions to the cost side. In addition to Congress and their staffs, are there other groups that will be exempted from the both benefits and payments or only from the payments as in, “no pay, still play”? Whether Muslims are exempt now or not, if the Amish are exempt it won’t be too long before there are lawsuits demanding that Muslims be exempted. What about Catholics who can’t participate in plans that pay for abortions or others who feel that abortion is wrong? Other than the Amish, I bet only the Muslims end up exempted due to explicit Koran language, something you’d think that a democrat who had grown up in an Islamic country and loved the sound of the call to prayer would know. Ya’ know?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/amish_muslims_to_be_excused_fr.html
Regards
LurkingAround
“None of you are going to do anything. We’ve unfortunately lost. But all this talk of this or that, repeal, and vote the bums out…. doesn’t mean squat. You’re burning your energy writing blog comments hoping for something. It aint gonna happen.
If you wanna do something, quit paying taxes, or go on strike. The government can’t work without your money. The government is not afraid of you, so unless you got better ideas, enjoy your dependence.”
Your pronouncement and prediction is going to be true for about half of America, but not for the rest of us, as we will take your advice on the availability of our money. We will establish a shadow economy and determine who gets our money and our efforts. We will not only work within the system to get the traitors out, establish people who love America in our government positions, but also to enact and repeal regulations, laws and amendments that we want or don’t want.
To have Congress do away with many of the Federal agencys, such as the Education, Energy and other agencys that have no positive nor beneficial effect upon the United States of America. To make the individual States responsible for their population and to restrict or do away with Federal influence and regulations.
Yes, it will take years. But we neglected our Republic for years, to our everlasting shame.
And if that fails, we will stand up, protect and preserve our Republic. Our Founder’s gave us the means and the way.
And we will not falter nor fail.
Papa Ray
.
On the narrow question of whether the State’s Attorneys General will have standing to file an action, they will. They are the legal representatives of the States who will be burdened with new unfunded mandates that will materially impact their financial condition, therefore they can demonstrate connection to and direct harm caused by the law, which fulfills the standing requirement.
This does not guarantee victory on any point, far from it. But it is enough to get them into court.
Don Rodrigo (90)
The lines you’re thinking along make a lot of sense. “Reverse Colonialism” on behalf of blacks is as good as reparations when you think about it. If the 40% of admissions to medical schools being minorities is a fact, then what do you call it if not blatant racism? I’m sure the thought having the minority rule the same way it did in the colonies has slithered across Barry’s mind even if it’s not right up front with the other reasons he wants to destroy the Constitution. He couldn’t have grown up in Indonesia without being expected to absorb the whole revisionist “American colonialism” line of crap the same way he was expected to memorize of the core-ran.
Regards
Obviously Viagra will be covered because of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Just for the information of all; the wonderful healthcare plan, all 3000 as yet unread but law of the land pages of it has a special provision. Buraq Hussein Obama; the Wise, the Compassionate, the Font of all Mercy [PBUH] has given us a Healthcare Plan whose provisions cover everybody …… except children with pre-existing conditions.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gap-in-health-care-laws-apf-4272209396.html?x=0&.v=1
Of course, since such came from Buraq Hussein, it is not a fault of the plan. It is somehow proof of his wisdom.
Because the STATE is never wrong.
Subotai Bahadur
Habu @ 65, you ever read C.S. Lewis, “Perelandra” and “That Hideous Strength”? All about fighting, and faith. Merlin says of Camelot, “We were two men and bear, and one of them was a churl, but we won.” So all we need is a wizard, and an understanding of what is our duty.
Obviously Viagra will be covered because of the Americans with Disabilities Act
I thought it was part of the emissions control under cap and trade.
Stay steady Patriots: The GOP is already rolling over on the “Repeal” effort! Rudy Giuliani has nixed the very notion of a rematch and Scott Brown is intent on betraying his Tea Party supporters as he accepts more and more of Obamacare!! Sen. Conryn and Sen. Kyl are also modifying their positions faster than rats on a hot plate. They now suppport the major portions of this atrocious bill. Disgusting. Despicable. A call to arms.
First we hunt the RINOs, the we build a proper party!
Giuliani:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKdRfHDJLE8&feature=player_embedded
the Treacherous Scott Brown, backing away inch by inch:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/03/_by_matt_viser.html
Just to lighten up the day.
An Instrument I could play
And also fix and keep running…don’t she sound good?
Papa Ray
Papa Ray (82)
LOL, love it. I’ve seen bands with drummers who looked like a corpse and should have been replace this way.
Regards
80 Slobodon Lewinsky: “First we hunt the RINOs, the we build a proper party!”
Yeah, sure, ok, what? You going to shoot them? No you won’t and every election is a hunt for RINOs, this one will be no different.
73. Papa Ray: “We will establish a shadow economy and determine who gets our money and our efforts. We will not only work within the system to get the traitors out, establish people who love America in our government positions, but also to enact and repeal regulations, laws and amendments that we want or don’t want.”
Oh wow, I can hear Pelosi shaking in her shoes.
I’ll repeat it again, the government isn’t afraid of you. You’ll just look around, post an angry comment or two, and then quickly login to check your 401K. When that is gone and your assets are gone, maybe you’ll do something. But not now.
Maybe enforced egalitarianism is the answer, but we’re looking at the wrong dimension. Instead of looking at redistributing the wealth perhaps we ought to be looking at redistributing the political privileges with a goal of making everyone equal.
The great myth of the “Progressives” is that they are trying to help the poor. Its all about equality, or so they say. But the real goal is not to lift up the poor, its to reduce the middle class down to the level of the poor.
Economic power translates into political power. The best way to destroy the middle class is to destroy their prosperity and economic independence. Its a work in progress. The more independent you are, the less you have need for the political class and all the tiny treats they offer, which usually come accompanied by a shiny plastic collar and a leash.
W:…a phenomenon called “wowserism”, supposedly an abbreviation of the slogan “we want social ills remedied”.
We should come up with a different ‘yowser-ism’ or something.
An abbreviation of ‘We want YOU to practice socialism ELSEWHERE’.
Don Rodrigo @ 70,
Orwell also concludes in his essay that shooting the elephant was entirely unnecessary. But shoot him he did, because that was what everyone expected. Arguably, that is the essence of tyranny, removing free will, creating an environment that makes even the ruling elites conform rigidly to expectations. And now our ruling elites have shot their elephant. Bully for them.
I vote for a constitutional convention. Making that proposal seriously, not as a frivolous bon mot, would scare the bejeezus out of the louts in DC.
They fear that an open CC would leave the people to lots of mischief, such as term limits, limits to perks, and any other fine thing you can think up.
Two-thirds of the states have to call for it, and it will happen.
It is the only thing I can think of that could be done prior to current year elections, and the only thing shy of SCOTUS decision to stop this atrocity before 2012.
How many states have enough voters that are angry enough at this usurpation to call for a convention? Surely, those whose AG’s have filed suit already would be amenable,no?
Just a thought.
tomw
Armageddon Rex @71 (and wws @74)
I think you are correct about standing. This challenge would have to come directly from the insurance companies. Even if it is found the AGs lack standing with regard to the personal mandate, plenty of personal suits will be filed.
Papa Ray, You’re doing right sir.
Even so, my father told me a while back when I was lamenting a cousin’s fall from common sense “you can’t save them all, they have to be willing first”.
There will be plenty of help around when its needed.
I vote for a constitutional convention. Making that proposal seriously, not as a frivolous bon mot, would scare the bejeezus out of the louts in DC.
I believe a constitutional convention would be a bone-headed blunder of major proportions, and would seal our fate for sure. The left would hijack any such convention, period. I think this convention talk that is popping up on some conservative blogs is a dangerous delusion. We have a constitution, we’re just not using it.
LurkingAround
Saying people won’t do anything makes me think you have already forgotten the massive rioting and disruptions that occured after Waco when the “militia threat” made the government disband the FBI HRT due to the protests and violence that incident caused.
Ummm, wiat a minute …..
Regards
LurkingAround
Ok, I was looking at the wrong papers, that was what everyone was going to do, not what they did. Sorry
Regards
Look, let’s face it, the beggers won.
We got outvoted.
Lesson is: go your own way, and don’t play with beggers.
bob (95)
Lesson is: go your own way, and don’t play with beggers.
The lesson is this is what the hell you get a few decades after you give up the high-schools and colleges to avowed leftists and don’t raise as much hell over that as people did over health care. Had Reagan had the House and Senate for even a single year he’d have gotten rid of the Education Department and we wouldn’t be here now as well as having not had so many other things shoved where the sun don’t shine.
Lefties are always pitching hissy fits over how education for kids that has a religious component is brainwashing but then no one seems to think it’s worth fighting the religion of the left being mandated everywhere. You reap what you sow, and people in this country planted a crop of kids that were brainwashed from the first grade on. So, it’s harvest time.
Repeal this crap, and take down the entire democrat academic infrastructure as well, the influence they have in public schools, the funding for universities, the whole nine yards and replace it with vouchers from pre-school all the way through advanced degrees, but don’t even pass out vouchers for three or four years so that the whole leftist mess falls down around them except for what private donations fund. After four years, those places left standing will either be obviously leftist propaganda centers or will have reformed. Why can state funded institutions guarantee people jobs no matter what they do? Outlaw public sector unions as well, period, no exceptions. If the “public servants” all quit, so what, there are plenty of people who will step and take those jobs even with less than incredible retirement plans and exorbitant salaries.
The thing is to destroy the enemy infrastructure not just take back this one hill only to abandon it later. Go ahead and pay the big tax increases or give as much as the increase will be to someone who you know will fight them at every turn then help them to get elected or stay in office. Fatalism or not wanting to have an all out battle with them is the same thing as joining them.
have a nice day
an B. @90 and wws @74:
What about the idea that states attorneys general will have standing since the new law puts an unfunded additional burden upon the states they represent?
Additional bonus question to everyone:
If states attorneys general can file and successfully pursue a lawsuit against the FedGov every time there is an unfunded federal mandate that takes a chunk out of a states pocket book, why didn’t Texas, Arizona, KKKalifornia, and New Mexico, to name just a few collect hundreds of billions from the FedGov in damages because of expenses related to illegal immigration from Mexico resulting from lax federal enforcement?
How about No Child Left Behind and other expensive under-funded federal mandates forced onto states?
How about all the billions spent on E.P.A. enforcement by state and local governments?
Why hasn’t the FedGov drowned in lawsuits filed by states since 1936 or thereabouts?
I’m missing something here.
Fatalism or not wanting to have an all out battle with them is the same thing as joining them.
There is not, repeat not, going to be an all out battle with them.
We are not, repeat not, in a ‘revolutionary situation’.
Much as many would like to think so.
An it ain’t sexy.
We’ve all got two cars, for Christ’s sake.
It’s sad, but the way it is.
“civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt.”
Any strategy of nonviolent civil resistance has to first make a good faith effort to achieve its end through the available political and legal means. But there comes a time when changing the law requires acts of conscience. For opponents of ObamaCare that time is Dec. 31, 2013. That’s when the individual mandate will go into effect. If ObamaCare hasn’t been repealed by Congress or nullified in court by then, its opponents would be justified in urging Americans to refuse to buy coverage or pay fines and dare authorities to come after them.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/23/obamacare-politics-united-states-reform-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia_2.html
A passive tax revolt should be considered too. At a minimum, don’t let the government have a free loan. Arrange your federal withholding accordingly.
Maybe we can’t shoot the beast, but we can attempt to deprive it.
(from a missed opportunity from the previous thread)
124. whiskey
Whiskey, so many,even here at BC can’t handle the truth of the situation we are in currently.
You speak with a boldness and veracity that no doubt actually frightens some; but it is the truth.
Keep poundiing the keyboad and preparing for what is coming … for as you know, it is coming and Herbert Spencer will be proved once again, stating his phrase:
“Survival of the fittest” is a phrase which is commonly used in contexts other than intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert Spencer ( who coined the term ) and Charles Darwin.
Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin’s biological ones, writing “This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”
Darwin first used Spencer’s new phrase “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for “natural selection” in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869.
http://tinyurl.com/my3gk
67. LurkingAround
You’ve already lost. Your post risible. Your kind will be the first to exit for the embrace of some heavenly body. I wish you no luck for you are a parasite on the body politic of free men and women. I can’t even work up any pity for you, as obviously it is needed.
Germane to this discussion, I think:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/23/obamacare-politics-united-states-reform-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html?boxes=opinionschannellighttop
SHIKHA DALMIA on non-violent resistance to ObamaCare: “President Barack Obama came into office promising hope and change. But he might get more change than he hoped for. By foisting ObamaCare on a deeply unwilling country he might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era, which, if it plays its cards right, could undo his legislation and his legacy. . . . By some estimates, Uncle Sam will need to hire an additional 17,000 IRS agents or so just to enforce the coverage mandate. But even if a few million Americans simultaneously refuse to abide by it, they could easily overwhelm the system. Self-rule or swaraj, Gandhi said, requires a collective understanding of the immense capacity of citizens to ‘regulate and control’ the coercive apparatus of the state through mass nonviolent resistance.”
Oh. I see someone has preceeded me. Fine, I’m glad.
O come on Habu, get off that Herbert Spencer shit.
Buy a new gun, go hunting or fishing, even without a license, get a little exercise.
I’ll meet you in Missoula.
We’ll read Roethke together. By a riverbank.
What the hell.
We might as well.
It all comes from the top, down, not from the down upwards, as you mistakenly think.
Rash (96), could you dial back the spleen a bit and restate what you think is wrong, and what we should do about it? I think I might agree with you, by and large, but as it is it’s fairly difficult to understand exactly what that is.
Rashputin 96
“take down the entire democrat academic infrastructure as well, the influence they have in public schools, the funding for universities, the whole nine yards and replace it with vouchers from pre-school all the way through advanced degrees, but don’t even pass out vouchers for three or four years so that the whole leftist mess falls down around them except for what private donations fund. After four years, those places left standing will either be obviously leftist propaganda centers or will have reformed.”
George HW Bush was, to paraphrase Gen. Patton, in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, with exactly the right instrument, to do this when the wall came down, and he did not. So discredited was the left in the mind of the general population that he could have defunded the entire academic left and all government pockets of collectivism and destroyed them forever with a few strokes of a pen, in much the same way that Truman made sure that anyone afilliated with the equally noxious ideals of fascism were in the post WWII era.
Now, it will require overt retribution and the stomach to deal with urban riots and possibly violence to accomplish this.
Which Repub or Tea Party candidate has the eloquence and charisma in an age of mass media to get elected, and then the stones, once in office, to carry this out?
“What about the idea that states attorneys general will have standing since the new law puts an unfunded additional burden upon the states they represent?”
If you’ll refer to my post #74, that’s the point I was trying to make. As the agent of the principal being harmed, the Attorney Generals have standing to sue.
As to your bonus question: Remember that we are just talking about the gateway question of standing, NOT the merits of the case. These are quite different things, and you are confusing the two. (As even many attorneys do, standing issues are notoriously arcane) There is no clear constitutional prohibition against unfunded mandates, which is why we have not seen State lawsuits on the issues you have listed. There would have been no point in a lawsuit on an issue which was clearly within Congress’ power to cause harm. (Yes, Congress does have the power to cause harm if they can do it in a Constitutional way) Harm caused merely gets you through the front door but does not win the case.
In *this* case the harm caused is important to give standing, and then the case can be heard on whether this law is actually constitutional or not, of which the complaint against the health care mandate is the most promising avenue of attack.
Congress clearly has the Constitutional power to regulate anything that has interstate consequences (immigration, EPA requirements) and the only way to beat that is to trump it with a higher Constitutional issue, such as a Bill of Rights/Personal Freedom issue. Past Courts may not have gone for this, but this Court could.
But it’ll be a close call. 5-4 either way. Okay, let’s be honest – it’ll depend on which side Kennedy takes.
101. Habu: “You’ve already lost. Your post risible. Your kind will be the first to exit for the embrace of some heavenly body. I wish you no luck for you are a parasite on the body politic of free men and women. I can’t even work up any pity for you, as obviously it is needed.”
Ok Habu, You’re Right! What grand strategy do you have?!?!? Come on, lets hear it…. what are you going to do? You gonna vote out some RINO’s? You gonna wag a finger at Pelosi and Obama and throw a teabag?
The line was drawn in the sand and we dared them… they crossed. Now what? Draw another line?
What you can and can’t have is also a metaphorical proposition.
I Taught Myself to Live Simply
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.
Anna Akhmatova
Rex and wws:
Thanks, wws… I was wondering the same thing.
What about the Duquesne Light Co. case? Congress has the power to regulate, but is that power unlimited? Can Congress use regulatory power to force a business into insolvency?
An argument can be made in the case of the Bag-o-Glass Children’s Toy Company that regulations could put an exceeding dangerous company out of business, but what about here? The precedent is utility rates. If a state can’t force a utility company to price itself out of business, can Congress do it to the insurance industry?
Habu — Thanks for the kind words though I do not know what would be most “fit.” Humans seem unique in that they embrace, at various times, both r and K reproduction. I.E. lots of offspring, in the hopes that rapidly changing conditions will favor at least one of them, and few offspring in the hopes that they can more fully exploit the existing resources. Social Darwinism is a mis-reading of Darwin’s theories. “Fittest” means only that which successfully reproduces the most offspring. It might be a blue whale, or it might be a shrimp. And each might vary over time.
The key to human expansion all over the globe is flexbility coupled with tool-making. If Ed Driscoll is correct, a rendezvous with scarcity, then current selection critieria are likely to change in unpredictable ways.
Consider the Government telling everyone what they can and cannot have.
Consider an ever more impoverished state and people. A shrinking pie.
Consider inevitably the slices of the shrinking pie, in everything, being allocated by RACE.
Now consider the response of each race as to how they maximize their shrinking pie. Its like an episode of Survivor. Only with more backstabbing, and more “tribal” solidarity.
If Government tells you if you can or cannot have Viagra, a corn dog, a burrito, a soda, a whiskey! or anything else … and will be inevitably tempted to tell you what you can and cannot do by race, is not IMPERATIVE that the majority race maintain desperately, by an means necessary, demographic dominance so as to maintain goodies in all areas of life?
Does this not sound the opening bell of an ever increasing race-based struggle to control every aspect of human life through government?
107. LurkingAround
If you possessed greater mental acuity you would have notice from the thread regarding “the dignity of the House” my initial response. Since this is a lacuna for you allow me to reconstruct it for you.
145. Habu:
I’m talking about resurrecting the purpose of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and cleansing from the system the Federal government’s intrusion into the affairs of each state thus restoring to its proper place the Tenth Amendment which has lost all meaning under our present situation. This is the incremental loss of liberty I talked about earlier.
Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
I fully realize to many it is atavistic to quote the Constitution or reference the notes on it (Farrand) , the Federalist papers etc. but brother we are a long way from original intent and the nexus of all power is now the Federal Government. That was not meant to be.
“The tree of liberty needs to be refreshed every now and then with the blood of patriots and tyrants” T. Jefferson…..November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover’s Jefferson On Democracy, ed., 1939.
Let us begin with the tyrants.
Now, that can be dilated to involve change needed in this republic. As for your challenge for a plan we will obviously never get an idea from you except surrender to the tyrants. Pitiful.
110. whiskey
Always a pleasure to attach correct thinking to that of my own experiences. Keep up your insight and perhaps the tocsin will sound for the death of PC in favor of rational thought, and enlightened progress can go forward, unhindered by thought not allowed or speech denied.
Rashputin 96:
I respectfully disagree; The progressive tax is what skewed the game. When people became exempt froman equal proportion (percentage) of the tax burden, they no longer cared how high the tax rate climbed. If everyone paid an equal percentage of taxes who do you think would care the most? The guy making 50 million paying 15% or the guy making 25k paying 15%? Even though the first guy would pay the most, it would hurt him less. Not everyone has skin in the game- and isn’t that one of the things Obama wanted to change?
The other day (was it yesterday?) I heard Nancy Pelosi say something really frightening, something along the lines of, now that the health care bill has passed, we will all have MORE freedom than before. Got that? MORE! Because we’ll now be free to get on with our lives and pursue happiness without having to worry about some medical catastrophe wiping us out.
This just makes me want to weep in despair over just how muddled people’s thinking can become.
And too many of our fellow Americans have succumbed to this confusion, thinking that delivering health care into the hands of government is the moral thing to do. In fact, it is the morally lazy thing to do.
Hayek in The Road to Serfdom explained it well: “There is all the difference between [1] demanding that a desirable state of affairs should be brought about by the authorities, or even being willing to submit provided everyone else is made to do the same, and [2] the readiness to do what one thinks right one’s self at the sacrifice of one’s own desires and perhaps in the face of hostile public opinion. There is much to suggest that we have in fact become more tolerant toward particular abuses and much more indifferent to inequities in individual cases, since we have fixed our eyes on an entirely different system in which the state will set everything right. It may even be, as has been suggested, that the passion for collective action is a way in which we now without compunction collectively indulge in that selfishness which as individuals we had learned a little to restrain.
“It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now – independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks… – are essentially those on which the working of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it has destroyed them it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual…”
This collectivist statism will destroy freedom AND virtue. Why cannot everyone see this?
But according to Pelosi, now that our government has finally at long last succeeded in forcing this gargantuan and unsustainable entitlement on us, we can congratulate ourselves for joining the rest of the world in doing the right thing and blissfully wash our hands of the problem from hereon.
What a victory. What a triumph. We are such good people.
And LurkingAround @85 is right to point out: our government is not afraid of us.
I guess I forgot to complete my thought- (happening way too often these days). From the previous example, there are also a lot more people making 25k per year than 50M so the voting block would be higher to keep taxes lower. The rich would still pay more taxes but in a fair proportion. Let’s not forget the middle class is the class bearing the majority of these burdens- and as one of them, I’M GETTING TIRED OF IT! I get so little REAL value for my taxes- less than most considering I have no children and serve in the military. There is truly NOTHING I need from the federal government. Except for them to get the hell off my back and out of my wallet. I don’t think I’m alone either…….
whiskey, Habu and many others here.
I hope that all of you can continue putting truth out where lies would rather be believed. Where those that have so much fear, can’t bring themselves to believe what is and has happened to them and our Republic.
I hope and wish that you all can gather the strength and endurance that is going to be needed over the years. Because believe me, it will not be a short nor easy battle to destroy progressive thinking and actions against America, especially when it comes to education.
I want all of you to spread your feelings, commitment and words all over the net. Here is good, but it needs to be shared and spread to those that are right now disappointed, discouraged and need direction and help getting back to what they and all of us want.
A Republic that is free, not encumbered by a goverment that is against the people, but one that serves the people without telling them how to live. One that wants us to prosper and for our Republic to remain the strongest in the world.
I’m not going to be around much longer to my great regret, The regret is not for myself but for my family and my Republic. So I am depending on the rest of you to do what it takes…whatever it takes to preserve, protect and most of all return our Republic back to what our Founders intended.
I know my words sound kinda corny but believe me, it is said, typed and felt with all my heart and soul.
Papa Ray
If we have a constitutional convention, I suggest something like this:
No legislation shall be voted on that takes effect more than 6 months in the future.
–
And if we want to get to this level in an amendment, it would also say: in determining financial impact, no estimates for the purposes of determining impact shall be made more than two years from the date of signing.
–
This, “two zillion dollars over fifty years” stuff is pure crap.
And, “takes effect in 2013″ should be plain unconstitutional.
So, you ask, what about long-term programs like social security? Yeah, what about them? Ponzi schemes. No more.
In the California state constitution we need something about bond issues. There should be a very, very, very strong preference for funding from current revenues, not borrowing.
–
On civil disobedience and direct action, well, we’ve never really had to do that here to any great extent, and it hasn’t worked very well when we have. I think most people want to see another election cycle, 2010 and maybe 2012, before getting too exercised. How long did it take to work up to the Civil War? At least ten years, if you don’t call it eighty.
OTOH there’s this already:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34953.html
(Democrats under threat, demanding Republicans speak against violence)
bob @ 98:
We’ve all got two cars, for Christ’s sake.
bob, you tried this line before and Habu shot you down quite effectively. His argument still wins. If you think this is all about a mess of potage, you are already mentally a slave.
Taxes are a liberty issue.
The American Dream is INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY and SELF-DETERMINATION. The house & car & vacation are by-products, not end goals, of that dream.
Marxists and materialists routinely mistake the shadow for the substance. True Americans are supposed to know better.
BTW … “we” don’t “all” have two cars. Some of “us” don’t even have cable TV, and have never been to Hawaii. Some of “us” work like dogs at two and even three jobs.
BTW also … recent poll reveals that 79% of Americans are afraid the economy is in danger of collapsing.
You still think everyone is sitting too fat & happy to do anything about what’s going on?
Kirk Parker (104)
Basically, don’t focus in this bill alone, we can get a majority and repeal if everyone who is pissed off actually gets active and helps elect a majority. Focus as well on where is the best possible place to toss your wooden shoes in order to screw up the democrat machine. They have an entire education system that does very little real educating and a great deal of preaching the democrat socialist revisionist history and the democrat socialist solutions. Anything you can do to deprive that system of funds, or time, or smooth sailing at hearings, or the ability to function in even the smallest way, gums up the supply of zealous volunteers. If you can get cuts in funding for local and state colleges on the ballot any way, do so, in order to have those who would normally be working for a candidate to be working to keep their own money instead. If there is any way to force hearings to be held on any topic at all, force them to hold hearings. Find anything you can to divert the attention of the academics in your area away from providing soldiers for the democrat party by having to fight their own battle at that time.
Anything you can do to slow, halt, delay, or derail, the local democrat politicians means you’re gumming up the rewards system they have to pay the faithful off with. Propose cuts in anything you suspect is staffed exclusively by democrats who were appointed by democrats. Wherever possible, get initiatives on the ballot to defund or derail local democrat pet projects. Find ways to publicly question anything you see as being done specifically to reward local democrats rather than the funds being used for other things that benefit everyone. Anything you can raise a stink over locally, run with it because having the local democrats sidetracked means they’ll be fighting on two fronts at once rather than just helping in the battle for national offices.
Republicans have to start attacking the democrats everywhere at once rather than only where they’ve prepared defenses and start fighting them like the thugs they are rather than as the representatives they claim to be. Apply for jobs you know you’ll be turned down for and appeal that as long as possible. Apply for aid you know you won’t get and appeal that as far as you can. Form a group and request meetings with local officials, then write letters to the editor and news outlets when you’re told you can’t be seen. Start a local website that documents every single instance you can uncover of a democrat being rewarded with public money in any little way for helping some democrat campaign. Demand that local finances be audited by the state due to whatever you can find that looks funny. Demand to have your Civil Rights respected when you go to public buildings and see pictures of the president because your religion says that it represents idol worship. Whatever the hell you can think of to divert and gum up the machine has to be done along with making damn sure that you vote and work to get votes for Republicans, even when only RINOs are running. Why? Because headcount determines chairmanships and so forth. He who has the most buttholes gets the most and best seats.
It’s too late to find the most conservative Republican possible in most places, so, a rotten republican is worth more than a rotten democrat if only because they’ll be counted towards who gets to set the agenda. As I’ve said elsewhere, what percentage of those spewing divisiveness and fatalism are actually long term fifth columnists who wouldn’t thrive were we to follow Reagan’s 11th commandment more often? How many more Republicans, who were flawed in many ways but solidly anti-abortion or solidly against Federal expansionism, would it have taken to stop this? How different would our situation be today had there been a literal handful, just five, more Republicans in the House? How well did it work out for those who stayed home because retaining control of the House wasn’t as important as their pet peeve or because “they’re all the same”? Was it really better to go back to the many decades of democrat control in Congress than to choke down your pet peeve and work to make sure Republicans retained the majority when they had it?
The democrat party is now and always has been the party of slavery, sedition, secession, civil war, KKK terrorism, Jim Crow laws, eugenics laws, anti-Semitic immigration restrictions in response to Nazi Nuremburg laws, Stalin worshippers, the welfare plantation system, voter fraud, voter intimidation, and the eugenics driven mass murder of minority infants. The democrat party has to be so thoroughly destroyed as a national political party that it is no longer a factor in national politics. Refusing to support less than pure Republican alternatives, sitting out elections, or anything else that keeps people from helping to rid us of these parasites while we are forced to continue drinking democrat arsenic, is either fifth column democrat propaganda or agreement that we should commit national suicide. Any tiny bit of sand you can throw into the gears of the democrat infrastructure (and there are many since they built that infrastructure on legalisms) has to be thrown in the gears at every level.
Regards
No viagra for sex offenders? That would be hard on them.
Ba-dump! A little levity to break the tension.
“Survival of the fittest.” The phrase is meaningless, a tautology. How do you define “fittest”? Fittest are “those beings that have survied.” So “survival of the fittest” means no more than “survival of those that have survived.” It tells you nothing whatsoever about the creature itself, and what qualified it for survival.
We all know the old yarns about it. One day an extra-fast fox was born, and being extra fast he got to catch more bunnies, and so he survived and passed on his extra-fastness to his children. But what if the extra-fast fox was eaten by a mountain lion before he could pass on his genes? Well then the not-so-fast fox was the one that “survived,” and hence the “fittest”. And so it goes.
Who will be the “fittest” in the coming struggle for the soul of America? Those that survive. Just as in Europe, the Muslims will, in fifty years, be the fittest, because they will be all that’s left. Even though Europe will be a scabrous stink hole by then, the great Cathedrals torn down, the classic art destroyed, the vineyards gutted, the literature burnt. Still, the Muslims will have won the fitness battle.
I leave you with inspiring words from Captain Ahab. Words for Revolution 2.0.
What I’ve dared, I’ve willed: and what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad — Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened!
And LurkingAround @85 is right to point out: our government is not afraid of us.
I think this is true with certain qualifications:
#1 – “So far.”
#2 – They don’t know us very well, do they?
. . . . . .
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
. . . . . . .
Push-push. Push. Push some more. Push-push-push. Scream “raaaaacist!” Push. Steal. Push-push. Ridicule. Push-push-pushy-push. Push again. And then push 4x as hard.
*POW*
Right from the horse’s mouth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK62MQ_OIEI
Dingell: “Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”
And there you have it.
SpeakEasy (113)
That’s an excellent issue to discuss and deal with when you’re in the majority, but the moral is far more important. Democrats spent several decades tearing down the family and making sure the idea that children could not rely on their parents and the elderly couldn’t rely on their children at least a fear in the back of most folk’s minds. They succeeded in generating fear of not having anywhere to turn and undermining the idea that the close knit family was the best source of help.
They were shocked, though, caught completely flatfooted, when the religious right made itself felt and spent several more decades making sure those who had shocked them by turning to their religious faith when fearful rather than to government, were suspicious of their religious faith as a source of strength the same way there became suspicious of the family. They also spent decades demanding that our religious foundations be completely removed from everything from the history books in schools to Christmas decorations that became snowflakes rather than Herald Angels.
Only when they had made sure they had made the single parent family acceptable, encouraged such families every way they could, and made sure that people were unsure of their faith and unable to see the connection to faith in our history, did they move to take over the way they wanted to and to take over with no concern whatsoever for the same rules they’ve insisted were critical in the public square. So, economics are the heart of matters to Marxists and I suppose to accountants (although my wife is a CPA and she doesn’t see it that way), but IMHO, you have to look first at the moral and the impact of actions on morale before you look at how economic factors influence people. Demoralize people and they will react differently to economic and tax factors differently than they will when not demoralized.
I’m not making light of or saying you point has no merit, I’m saying that you can’t deal with that sort of thing unless you’re a majority and willing to fight to keep a majority long enough to the effects to alter people’s perceptions of their relationship to the government. Look at the Bush tax cuts; they’re a whipping boy due to persistent propaganda intended to demoralize in spite of having brought in more revenue and in spite of having shifted a greater percentage of the tax burden to the wealthy. Consider, too, the number of times (I leave that as an exercise for the reader) the Bush team tried to move forward with different regulations for mortgage lending and for repealing the changes Clinton had made which they felt were undermining the system. Those efforts were dropped when propaganda successfully characterized them as being mean spirited and the exact opposite of the Bush idea that ownership made better citizens. Losing the moral point and having your troops morale undermined makes far more difference than did the reality in either situation the same as it has in many others.
Regards
You still think everyone is sitting too fat & happy to do anything about what’s going on?
Yes, I do. Maybe not fat, maybe not happy. Divorces, unrequited loves, failures of this and that kind. But satisfied.
We all got cars. We are nowhere near a revolutionary situation. It isn’t going to happen, thankfully.
Buy a new fly rod, go fishing, vote for the Pubs.
Cause that’s all there is.
When I see some really really starving people on the streets, then you got a revolutionary situation.
But not from the right.
We are having a class reunion this summer. Almost all the people–those still alive–have done well.
Not a revolutionary among them. Of the left or right.
Just get together, play golf, take the river cruise, and chat. Maybe a little bridge, too.
#119 rdashputin
I turn up in other blogs, and yesterday I posted something that caused a bit of a stir. It also drew attention from one of the trolls that were hired by [ insert] in the latest offensive against conservative blogs.
To go along with your list of action items, may I append what offered yesterday:
————
Seriously, very seriously, if anyone here has a business I recommend the following procedures. Since race, color, gender, and religion are not involved I suspect that it is perfectly legal. It is not any violation of any First Amendment rights, because we are private parties making private choices not enforced by law. They have freedom to advocate any politics they want, but they don’t have freedom from the private consequences of that advocacy. And in point of fact with a dozen applicants for every job, thanks to the wonders of Democrat economics, being laid off or rejected is not unusual.
1.) Add to the background and reference check on all job applicants a quiet check of their voter registration. If the applicant is a Democrat, why hire someone who supports destroying your business?
2.) Run the same check on all of your current employees. If they are Democrats, keep your own quiet list. If you have to lay someone off, see if it can be them. And for that matter, when pondering promotions or pay raises [not likely in this and the coming economy] why fund the enemy?
3.) Granting that price and similar factors are of first priority because you are struggling to stay in business, if you should hear that a supplier is a Democrat, or is a supporter of Democrats, why fund the enemy if you can find an alternative? Frequently the local Democrat power structure is based around a local business owner. Wouldn’t it be nice if a loss of business pushed him to the wall instead of you?
4.) The enemy is depending on certain levels of taxation coming through to support their conversion of the United States into a Socialist Workers’ Paradise. It behooves every Patriot to do everything they can to deny funds to the enemy. Get with whoever you trust as far as tax advice, and figure out what the minimum you can have withheld to meet your obligations at the end of the year, and reduce to that figure. It never is a good idea to give the government an interest free loan for the year. They depend on hundreds of billions of dollars in overpayments to float their schemes. Cut them off. You will need the money to survive the economic bad times through the year anyway.
5.) If you can convert all or part of your business activity to under the table, do so. Avoid feeding the beast. The use of services and skills are not subject to easy monitoring. If you help someone build something for cash, if you make some home brew beer and sell it quietly to friends, if you can grow, make, or create something that your friends and neighbors want and need, and they have something you want or need; trade for the benefit of Patriots is far better than giving a cut of the fruits of your labor to the oppressors and drones. Cut your on-the-books business down to the minimum so as not to support the beast.
6.) As the government takes over health care, there are going to be a lot of doctors and nurses who will drop out of the system. We are going to need their care to provide what the State will not, and they are going to need our support to treat us outside of government control. Help everyone [except perhaps lawyers, who are in oversupply and are counter productive in general] whose profession comes under the control of the state and who are seeking the right to make a living as a free citizen.
7.) Amongst those who are not the enemy; study, talk, and teach the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration, and the true history of the United States and the world. Keep in contact with our Oathkeepers and discuss the limits placed by the Constitution on the government. Speak as freely and publicly as can be done with safety. Study, talk, and teach your personal faith amongst your fellows in faith; whatever it may be. Let your faith be your strength in the hard times to come.
8.) Wherever you can, however you can, interfere with the government takeover of our country. Be inventive, from graffiti, to discovering and revealing matters which individual Democrats would rather not have become public, to any other measures you can think of to discredit what they do as both a regime and as human beings. Keep in mind that it is hard for people to fear those they are laughing at or have contempt for.
——————————
This is part of a longer piece. The troll was not happy, claiming that I should not criticize all Democrats because some of them who supported it truly and genuinely believed it was a good thing.
I answered. Shotgun, fish, barrel.
Subotai Bahadur
111. Habu: “As for your challenge for a plan we will obviously never get an idea from you except surrender to the tyrants. Pitiful.”
Never said that I wanted to surrender and I suggested something in post 67.
What you are really talking about is a hope for the return of the repressed, lower urges.
Only a fool wants that. Because there is no thought there.
Oh, bother. In # 125 I left a placeholder “[insert]” unfilled because I had to go back and look up the source. It should read:
“hired by Organizing for America to discredit the reaction against Obamacare, in the latest offensive against conservative blogs.”
Sorry,
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai, another thing to consider. Start to join the Leftie organizations. Go join Organize for America, or ACORN, or whatever else Soros funded gang of Orcs, and dismantle from within. Find dirt, make copies, release to the world. Make terrible “mistakes” like deleting all the names on their mailing list, or losing the credit card numbers from their last fund drive (what a great place to become the IT guy!). Go work for your local Dem congress-creature. Ask pertinent questions presented as ignorant questions.
This isn’t a bad idea, esp for those of us who have lost or will soon lose our jobs. I’m sure these Lefty organizations are hiring, and god knows your local Dem Crime boss is. Everyone here knows the Leftie cant and could probably easily spout the rhetoric needed to get past the interview process. So why not earn a paycheck while boring away from within?
Until I see some real starvation on the streets, I’ll continue to do what I’ve been doing, reading books transcendental, and writing to the impossible.
no mo uro, Rashputin, Karen and all of you who know of the damage our educational system has done to America’s youth, watching this short interview type video is depressing but everyone needs to watch it to understand how most of the younger generations have been tainted and damaged.
On the streets of Chicago, and don’t forget that their vote counts just like yours.
Here is part of a telling comment left at the link.
How do we re-educate these young people, when they have no basis of education that they can use to see what is going on and what is being done to them?
That is an important question we must find the answer to in the next two years.
Papa Ray
Subotai Bahadur
Good ideas, I’d say. I told someone, maybe on PJ, that this could be stopped if people just sat down for the weeks prior to it. I mean, sit down and buy nothing but food and toilet tissue and if at all possible, take personal days, vacation time, or whatever else possible to stay out of work. No retail purchases shows up quickly in the tax receipts of local governments and in two weeks there’d be a near panic over how long could this last. Of course, everyone wanted to continue on anyway, so that’s the way it is.
People aren’t thinking in taking down the whole thing that got us to this point, not all of which is made out of the stern stuff those at the top of the national democrat party are. Find places that are weak, bypass centers of resistance, and push into the enemy supply lines, is the way to go. Republicans seem to love either massed charges or gallant rear guard actions for the sheer heroic tales they lead to when they could do a hell of a lot better thinking like Patton who never wanted to attack an enemy head on. Something on PJ talked about Patton and “real Americans”, but as I read through it all I didn’t see a single mention of his call to, “hold em’ by the nose and kick em’ in the ass”.
I’m sick of people who claim to be Republicans or conservative independents but don’t work to keep the Republicans in the majority. Even a few more people in the House would have made this impossible, but what the hell, the people who didn’t care get to talk about the long retreat they made through Burma on the way to this point which to many of them may be just as good as winning this one. To others, I’m sure they’re plants and fifth columinsts who vote democrat every time the get a chance but always spout just the opposite. It’s like third party people who I say are voting democrat but retaining plausable deniablity.
Regards
PS — Don’t even worry about little spelling or other mistakes, I had to learn how to talk again after a head injury and I screw up my typing because I still type as fast as I did before the injury but don’t always read it back correctly because there’s a lingering effect something like dyslexia. People can have a lot of good things to say without always getting the punctuation, spelling, and links just right, so I ignore them unless they make it hard to understand.
Yes, I do. Maybe not fat, maybe not happy. Divorces, unrequited loves, failures of this and that kind. But satisfied.
We all got cars. We are nowhere near a revolutionary situation. It isn’t going to happen, thankfully.
Yes, yes, I’ve seen the pictures. All those young revolutionaries in the 1960s in the streets, taking over the offices of Berkeley, the bomb-throwers of SDS … all gaunt and ragged and three-quarters starved, poor waifs. Who could blame them? Throw a bomb, burn a campus, shoot a pig … all for just a crust of bread to fill their empty bellies.
- OR –
You’re ignoring what’s right in front of you.
The revolutionaries of the 1960s were the most spoiled & affluent generation of Americans in the history of this country.
If people only fight over bread, what explains Bill Ayers?
Revolutions can start over bread.
They can also start over ideas.
The world has seen both.
America’s revolutions have all been over ideas.
Here’s the point:
You fight for the idea first because, if you fail to do so, you *will* at some point be fighting for the bread.
And here’s the $64K question:
Do enough Americans realize this?
Buy a new fly rod, go fishing, vote for the Pubs.
Cause that’s all there is.
Useless, defeatist, and wrong.
132. reahputin: “…this could be stopped if people just sat down for the weeks prior to it. I mean, sit down and buy nothing but food and toilet tissue and if at all possible, take personal days, vacation time, or whatever else possible to stay out of work. No retail purchases shows up quickly in the tax receipts of local governments and in two weeks there’d be a near panic over how long could this last.”
I would second this. Set a date, call for a strike. Be prepared for it too last for a couple of months. Not everyone will be able to do it, but if a third of those who oppose O-care would do it, it would create a bit of havoc. Not only financially, but key personnel would not be available for work. It is the only nonviolent way of stopping this thing that I could think of, but would welcome other ideas.
Papa Ray (131)
That is the question, and for starters fight fire with fire is what I say. I’ve read that abortion, for instance, polls worse among people under thirty than in those over thirty. If so, do the same damn thing they’ve done, tell an emotional story. Forget the story about Betty Sue and the coat hanger, how about Jose and Betty Sue?
Jose and Betty Sue are madly in love and looking forward to Jose Jr arribing in five months. Betty’s parents, though, can’t stand the thought of Betty Sue being punished with a baby for making a single mistake, especially before she finishes college. Not only do they keep Jose and Betty apart as much as possible, they work constantly to convince her that abortion is the best thing she can do. Finally tiring of the fights with her parents and knowing how difficult it is to not have their support, Betty Sue does as they wish. Jose, of course, has no say so at all. He is only the father and he and Jose Jr don’t exist as far as the abortion industry and our current laws are concerned.
Jose Jr, doing his daily exercises of kicking his finger length legs and flexing his incredibly fine little fingers, fingers already just like those of Jose Sr, flexing them in time with his tiny beating heart as he floats in the sanctuary of his own mother’s womb. Suddenly, he’s no longer exercising, he’s being drawn harshly downward, and as his finger length legs are ripped from his tiny hips, just before his head is crushed, by the same suction that tore away his legs, he tries to make his first sound. Not the cry of a new born thrust out of his mothers stable environment into a strange new world to meet Betty and Jose, but a twisted scream of incredible pain that no one hears, no one but his father Jose, that is. Shouldn’t fathers have a say in the life and death decisions about their own children?
If I can come up with that, I’m sure wordsmiths can come up with better to run everywhere just because it IS emotional. If emotion is what it takes, there’s a lot more emotion to be had telling the true stories of the effects of democrat eugenics, socialism, and racism, than there is in all the paper thin tales spouted by the democrat aristocrats who “can only imagine” how it must be. Conservatives don’t have to “imagine” what things would be like because they live in reality rather than an ivory tower or the taxpayer funded fantasy world of Washington DC.
For every issue, find a couple of emotional triggers and run them over and over, and beat people over the head with them. If sad stories are what it takes, then find real, true, documented, sad stories. The democrat party must be destroyed as a national political party in order to ever “set things aright”, and having not “lowered ourselves” to play on emotions hasn’t worked. So, chip, chip, chip, away. First parents and fathers having rights, then first trimester only and free pregnancy test kits, and so on. Each and every issue needs a plan and multiple very emotional stories to illustrate the situation realistically and present the solution as something other than selling your soul to socialist overlords. Emotional issues work in our favor if we have the brains to use them, so do social justice issues, and a raft of other issues if we just recognize the game we’re playing.
You can’t fight “Rules for Radicals” with “Robert’s Rules of Order”.
Regards
I’m jumping ahead in this thread before reading all of it, so please forgive me if this idea has already been posted.
Any country that needs a new industry could make trillions of dollars by setting up a first-class healthcare industry that could attend to the needs of middle-class Americans who are shut out of the new socialist paradise of the formerly free USA.
I’m looking at you, Israel, but there are many western or westernized countries that could provide top-notch healthcare if they tried. Mexico, Latvia, Poland, Costa Rico, India, the Bahamas, etc. etc. etc.
The financial details could be worked out. The key is that the healthcare would cost less than the cost of waiting in lines in the fallen USA.
bob, you are truly a pityful creature.
[bob: "My preciousssss, my preciousssss!"]
Re #136 Promethea . . .
Sorry that my post sounded so negative, coming at the end of this long thread, which I finally just finished reading.
I believe that there are thousands of things that we Americans can do to stop socialism in the U.S. As a first step, we need to reiterate the concept of federalism described in the Tenth Amendment.
Yes, it IS POSSIBLE to roll back the power of the federal government, which has turned into Leviathan. We just need to discuss this in depth, so that the idea catches on.
To bob especially, I invite you to read “MIG Pilot” ISBN-13: 978-0380538683, the biography of Viktor Belenko (Виктор Иванович Беленко.) This is the Russian pilot who in 1976 flew his MIG-25 Foxbat from his airbase in the Soviet Union to a public airfield in Hokodate, on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
His story includes his descriptions of the Soviet Union in the years of its decay, but before its rot became conspicuous to outsiders… which was in fact just about 24 hours after the final collapse!
Some passages still vivid to me twenty years after reading this include his descriptions of a concrete building (into which he’d expected to move) shoddily built because of corruption at every level from design, approval, materials supply, construction, inspection, etc. The building’s exterior walls separated, and threatened to collapse before construction finished. The solution that allowed tenants who’d been waiting for their apartments for most of a decade to go ahead and move in? Bind the building’s outsides with damn great steel straps.
In another passage, he recalls hooligans boarding a public bus he was riding. They casually stabbed a young woman, and got off at the next stop. While a warbling ambulance picked its way through jammed streets the young lady bled to death. Lawlessness flowed from the general sense that the law was never enforced, as could be seen by the universal example of officials who only did their jobs when sufficiently encouraged by bribes.
He describes the survival smarts developed by consumers: Don’t buy an appliance made near the end of the month, because the factory workers are so desparate to meet their quotas that they’re pounding screws into place with hammers instead of taking the time to screw them in with screwdrivers, And don’t buy your appliance in the first week of the month, because the factory workers are still drunk or hung over from celebrating after meeting their previous month’s quota.
At his airbase, flight crews regularly broke the locks on the storage compartments for the high-purity alcohol meant for the fighter-jets’ hydraulic systems, and got stuperous and faced drinking the stuff that was far more potent than the best vodka they could find. This, along with chronic jet fuel shortages, made both the crews and the planes “hors de combat” most of the time.
In Soviet Union, the term “nomenklatura” referred to those gentlemen and women sufficiently-well connected as to be granted access to the best medical care, tickets to the Bolshoi Ballet, tutors for the children, vacations in the West, shopping privileges at the best-stocked stores, etc. Access to such stores would be by way of plainish doorways on side streets, while the prols stood endlessly in lines for the public Department Stores, with uninspired staff and uncertain supplies of shabby goods, but low prices when they had the goods in stock. Only the nomenklatura were admitted, but despite the camouflage of unadorned portals, the unprivileged had eyes and could see.
Television and radios were manufactured with controls that only allowed the sets to receive approved government frequencies. If your set was found to have been modified to receive other frequencies – you were for the gulag. If a common citizen spoke to a European tourist and was observed by KGB – arrest. If a commoner wanted to travel to another city, permissions from an official were needed.
I learned many of these details in conversation with Russian immigrants and ex-pats when I was studying Russian in college, in an intensive language course.
This is the “workers’ paradise” the lepers running our government are trying to recreate in the USA.
Я не хочу, чтобы это случилось здесь.
Heads up as the enemy is working to distract us
There apparently is an organized push by the Democrats to try to defuse anger on blogs about the health care nationalization. Details here.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/the_obamacare_acceptance_strat.html
Don’t get taken in.
Subotai Bahadur
55. aloysiusmiller said:
“…I also believe an amendment should be added that says that no chronic user of marijuana (legal or illegal) , tobacco, alchohol…..so I don’t have to pay for their healthcare…”
—–
How about including other more risky behaviors like driving a car and bicycling?
One of the scenes that stuck with me from the days before the Soviet Union fell was a description written by a visitor walking through a weekend market who came upon a pyramid of burned out lightbulbs for sale.
Burned out lightbulbs? How could those be for sale in *any* economy? The answer was a microcosm of the entire Communist system at the end of its life. There were massive shortages of all consumer goods – since the official “prices” were far below production costs, every government owned manufacturer operated at a huge loss and they simply couldn’t afford to produce what they needed anymore. (that applied to *every* consumer good, not just light bulbs) So working lightbulbs weren’t available at any price. However, the system *did* still produce goods for the government offices and factories, which of course was pretty much everything.
So, if you had a lightbulb go out in your shabby apartment, how did you get it replaced? You went to the market, bought a burned out light bulb, and then went to your office and slyly switched it with a working one. The office managers were probably amazed at how often the lights burned out – or probably not, since they were doing the same thing themselves. It never occurred to the State that they should account for the “burned out” bulbs, since of course they were worthless.
And this is how, in a command economy, burned out lightbulbs can become a hoarded and sought after commodity. And also how *all* who are part of such a society are forced to become liars and thieves just to survive.
“…I also believe an amendment should be added that says that no chronic user of marijuana (legal or illegal) , tobacco, alchohol…..so I don’t have to pay for their healthcare…”
This is a good example as to how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. How do you determine Chronic User? Don’t think of defining this as *you* would do it; think about this like the bureaucrat who is going to implement this system. Obviously verification is required, and since tests can be gamed it’s best that they are unannounced. It’s also easiest to find out this info by going through someone’s living space and looking for the proscribed goods.
To make a long story short, to the bureacracy that will be given this power, this nice sounding amendment justifies 24 hour surveillance on every “citizen” (serf) and also justifies unannouced, unwarranted searches and seizures of any person, any place, any time.
You will have created a Police state. And once this power is entrenched, it’s only a matter of time before it’s used to reward political allies and punish enemies. Shouldn’t those who harm society by failing the drug tests be jailed for their own good? And how hard is it to make sure that any critics of the regime turn up with positive tests? The Soviet Union used psychiatric hospitals for critics, since anyone who criticized the government must be insane. This would simply be a new version of the same old game.
As I said, this is how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The moral and honest answer to the problem you are trying to solve is that you don’t pay for anyone’s healthcare but your own.
#125 Subotai
Sir, good advice. I want to clarify something that is implicit in your advice but may not be realized to everyone.
The only was to succeed is to engage our communities. The more libertarians isolate and withdraw from out neighbors the less influence we have. The left portrays those who desire liberty and the constitution as fanatics with an armory in the woods. We need to be involved – be a scoutmaster or soccer coach, volunteer at a hospital or nursing home, tutor kids. When our neighbors realize people who want liberty are just like them, and are trusted and respected leaders in the neighborhood, that is very valuable.
If business owners hold meetings with their employees and say “I’ve crunched the numbers and obamacare means we all have to take a 5% pay cut – me included”. that’s going to have more impact than keeping secret lists of idiots with obama stickers.
144 Jay
The only was to succeed is to engage our communities
There is never enough of this. I love kids and love teaching and helping them and there is always someone needing help doing this. I also am not one to keep my mouth shut and keep my views (on everything) to myself. You don’t want me at a public meeting, such as a city council or county commissioner meeting, unless you are ready to get an earful of my views, opinions and requests (sometimes phrased as demands).
When I show up at school board meetings and PTA meetings you could see the organizers of same scurrying about, whispering and planning how to handle me, because they knew that they would have to.
But see me show up at a game or event with all the local kids and you would see them run to me smiling and happy to see me, because they knew I was and am their friend.
Even today as I meet people on the street they hug and tell me how much they valued my friendship and help as they were growing up.
There is no better pay nor recognition than that, and I’m sure that some of my values, beliefs and politics rubbed off on those kids over the years.
Or at least I hope so.
Papa Ray
Jay,
If business owners hold meetings with their employees and say “I’ve crunched the numbers and obamacare means we all have to take a 5% pay cut – me included”. that’s going to have more impact than keeping secret lists of idiots with obama stickers.
People with Obama stickers think you are a capitalist and exploiting them. They would agree with you having 50% pay cut, while them having none to equalize outcomes. That is fair in their book. Anything less than that would be still perceived as exploitative by them.
How about applying the list and then nobody having any pay cut (or only a couple of % if necessary)?
Problem solved!
“[Ezra Klein] believes Obamacare was a tremendous victory in the culture wars and virtually rubs his hands in glee at the prospect of telling people what to do with the rest of their lives.”
Ezra had better rub his hands quickly and enjoy his end-zone dance: I suspect his “victory” will be far more fleeting than he thinks. It took leftists nearly 100 years to impose nationalized healthcare on an unwilling America–repealing and replacing it won’t take nearly as long and, in fact, the Long March back to sanity will likely commence this coming January.
As for Li’l Ezra, it’ll be quite interesting to see the look on Klein’s face when, on a day not far off, the WaPo, which is, by all measures, slowly bleeding to death, tells him his blog services are no longer needed due to “regrettable financial exigencies.”
Why are you reading or citing the Constitution? Get real, subjects. The Constitution of US has as much relation to the government’s behavior as the Constitution of the USSR had to the Soviet Union.