Our Ongoing Catharsis
Presidential Popularity
After just eight months, the President is at a 50/50 cross-roads in the polls. The once hope-and-change exuberance has dissipated. Such unpopularity is hardly new; what is novel is the rapidity in which a 70%+ approval rating has plummeted to 50%.
What’s Next?
The result is that Obama is increasingly at the mercy of events, rather than directing them himself. If the economy rebounds quickly, if his supporters vastly water down his cap-and-trade and health care initiatives and call such nuancing success, if energy prices stay depressed, if his administration stops the racial hectoring, if Michelle, Biden, and others are advised to smile rather than to speak, then Obama may, like Clinton in 1995, recover.
But if a recovery morphs into Carter-like stagflation with high unemployment, interest, and inflation, coupled with low growth, if Obama insists on a blood-on-the-floor flight for socialized medicine and radical energy taxes, if we get more “cowards” and “stupidly” editorializing, if Michelle gets angry and emerges with more “this is a downright mean country” sermonizing, if Biden starts talking his astrology, then we could witness a Carter or Bush meltdown in the polls—but in year one rather than four or five.
What Happened?
The public was mad at Bush for deficit spending, and yet Obama baited-and-switched and gave them much more of it. Americans perhaps were tired of “smoke ‘em out” and “bring it on” machismo, and then got off-the-teleprompter incoherence of the ‘inflate your tires’ type. Voters wanted Martin Luther King, Jr., and are hearing more an Al Sharpton. Wall Street greed continues, but the remedy for its excess instead falls on our family doctor, real estate broker, and accountant, and all the others who are demonized for making over $250,000 a year. Some believed Nancy Pelosi & Co. were genuine supporters of protest, and critics of government privilege—and only now learned that it was only liberal protest and Republican privilege she and her cohort praised and slurred. We wanted kinder, gentler servants, and instead got a Hillary snapping and gnashing in the Congo, Timothy Geithner swearing in profanity-laced diatribes at bank regulators, and Biden’s lunacy.
Quiet Before the Storm?
The more I talk to Americans, the more they seem to me increasingly apprehensive about the growing deficits. They are exasperated that the talk of all these new taxes won’t translate into balanced budgets, but into gargantuan new debts. More and more get the impression that the more we are to pay for taxes and the more entitlements are to expand, the more both are owed rather than appreciated. The more we say we are sorry abroad, the more a Chavez, Kim Jong Il, or Ahmadinejad may well confuse contrition for timidity and so try to readjust the regional order—as a warm-up for something really serious from Russia or China.
A Necessary Catharsis
If one reads the early plays of Aristophanes, Aristotle’s Politics, or later political observers like Tocqueville, then one appreciates that in a democracy there is always a certain tendency for ochlocracy. Popular demagoguery ensures that the better off are pilloried, and the public votes itself largess that it simply does not have. Indeed, in the ancient world, it is largely accepted that while democracy in name means power of the people in the sense of majority rule, it so often translates into the power of the poorer classes.
The corrective is for a conservative minority to win over a majority by appeals to reason and moderation, to stifle public appetites, to honor traditional values, to remind us all of the tragic limitations inherent in the human experience.
Six months, Doc? By the first week of January the campaigns of 2010 will be well under way.
What prevented the massive majorities in congress, 60 democrats out of a senate body of 100, 236 democrats out of a chamber of 435, from passing legislation as easy as government-paid insurance?
Why did they fail to do their job of holding a simple vote on yet another bill before taking leave from Washington for their August vacations?
They freely admit to casting their vote on unread bills, so delay for any perfunctory reading had no prospect of running out of time.
Why wouldn’t those “carrying swastikas and symbols like that” not give them the best justification of all to vote without delay?
How is it that the will of our historic first Islamic apostate president did not prostrate the democrat-controlled congress?
Has the true number of racist, greedy, oppressive “democrats in name only” in the congressional majority not been reported in the media?
Has yet another attempt to thrust socialism on American just failed?
“We have been in far, far worse predicaments before.”
Except that in past crises, our leaders were people who thought the country was honorable and wanted it to prosper.
I think you’ve misdiagnosed the problem. The problem is that elites, mostly middlemen like Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, George Soros, David Geffen, and the like amassed enormous fortunes and that money trumps votes. The Obama campaign was a triumph of what Joel Kotkin called the Liberal Gentry, those in the finance, government, legal, entertainment, and media spheres. Coastal elites with tremendous amounts of wealth that figure their wealth ought to give them the right to direct and order everyone else’s lives as they see fit.
This is precisely what Obama was elected to do, and he is in fact doing it.
What we are witnessing is what Ed Driscoll calls the “Cold Civil War” and it is heating up. ObamaCare is a death warrant for seniors, and really anyone over 55 since it means rationing and cost-cutting, as detailed by the WH. Cap and Trade pushes up energy costs to punitive levels for the middle class. More Affirmative Action puts college and indeed upward mobility out of reach for the sons at least of middle class White Americans.
Obama and the Liberal Gentry can make the White Middle Class poor, with no path to College and careers for their sons, and with rationed, third world health care (while the connected get First World treatment). But the Gentry can’t remove them from existence. Thus the middle class becomes permanent enemies. Enemies of Obama. Of Democrats. Of Unions. Of Affirmative Action. Of Environmentalism. Of Green concerns. Of a socialism that is basically crony capture of the government and racial spoils politics.
The VAST amounts of wealth may trump any action, domestically, until some crisis like say, a terrorist nuclear strike on a US city from a shipping container nuke, or a missile strike on Hawaii or Alaska from North Korea or Iran, or an Alamo like last-stand defeat in Afghanistan drives events forward into a place where Wealth cannot trump votes.
But lets be clear on one thing: inside America the elites and the White Middle Class are clearly mortal enemies. One must destroy the other, completely and absolutely, in order for political calm to be part of it.
And just as Bush destroyed the Republican Party and coalition by highlighting it’s internal contradictions: Elite-driven social policies like AA, Open Borders/Amnesty, “compromise” on military spending and national security are incompatible with a populist and angry Middle Class, so too will Obama destroy Democrats.
Seniors already know that they are too White and too old for Dems, and have been slated for the chopping block. Women know they and their health concerns (such as Breast Cancer treatment and screening) are less important that patronage pork for connected insiders. Middle class Americans intimidated and told what to do by arrogant elitist office-holders and union goons along with ACORN thugs, are radicalized people who will become permanent enemies of the Democratic Party. It’s telling that Republicans have been SILENT on ObamaCare and the opposition is all grass-roots, ala Glenn Reynolds “Army of Davids.”
My guess is a new figure, for good or ill, will lead a new party based on explicit White Middle Class politics and interests and identity, aimed at destroying the wealthy elites like Soros, Cuban, and Buffett, along with their political allies and interest groups, marginalizing both Republicans and Democrats. If we are very lucky, such a leader will be principled and limited in tenure.
“The Republicans so far have not offered any alternative for Obamism.”
Because they can’t. They lack the imagination and any coherent ideology. That task will probably fall in five years or so to some new party combining elements of traditional Republicanism, libertarian thought, and Sarah Palin-style anti-Washington sentiment. The question is how much irreversible damage will be done in the meantime. It is very much an open question as to whether fiscal discipline will first be enforced by such a new party or by our foreign creditors.
“So I remain optimistic that the resilience and good sense of Americans remain.”
The Average American exhibits neither resilience nor good sense. When faced with tough times, Average American whines and pleads for special treatment. He doesn’t gird his loins or tighten his belts. When faced with huge national problems, Average American demands of his government, “Do whatever gives me the most money or makes my life easiest.” Average American does not say, “Do what’s best for the country. I’m willing to sacrifice so the next generation will be better off.”
So, given that we have no worthy political parties, no large group of responsible conservatives, and a mostly me-me-me first electorate, I’d say that we have good cause for pessimism, not optimism. Switzerland, anyone?
p.s. Speaking of which, your representative to Congress won’t be holding any town hall meetings. Time for you to run, Doc — for his office, that is…
“The more I talk to Americans, the more they seem apprehensive”. So, if you stop talking to Americans, things will get better? Just kidding, your writing is always spot on.
If the professor is optimistic, I’ll be optimistic.
When the hysterical wife finally spends her family into a debt beyond any reality of being paid off, what do you think the husband does?
Sure, it could be the husband who is hysterical and creates such a mess: Have it which ever way you prefer, but the question still remains.
What if the family turns around and says to its creditors “screw you” for a solution?
Would China and others go to war with us?
Did Freud like hysterics as patients? Why or why not?
“After just eight months, the President is at a 50/50 cross-roads in the polls.”
Rasmussen shows Obama’s numbers to be just under 50%. He now polls around 47/48%—and that makes a big difference. I also don’t think his numbers will ever go back up. There are just too many people who realize the true extent of the danger. A year ago these same individuals rarely gave a damn about politics. It’s a matter of self preservation. This is probably especially true of parents also worried about the future of their children. They are now committed to opposing the Obama juggernaut.
I also believe that Obama is marginalize president who will never again be able to push through major legislation through the Congress. Nonetheless, I adamantly warn against complacency. The premise of my optimistic argument totally revolves around the continued activism of an alarmed citizenry.
Right. On. :)
These sorts of things are elevating (as in elevation, one of the “moral” emotions… . . . . . . ).
“We have met the enemy, and they are us.” (Pogo).
The young men and women of our military show us that there is still some backbone left in the country, but as Dr. T observes, the majority of the rest of us seem spineless, as evidenced by the ascension of Obama. More than forty years of “progressive” education (indoctrination might be a better word) and an activist media have corrupted our citizens’ understanding of their government and the principles on which it was based.
Our country wasn’t founded as a democracy, yet a democracy it has become. And history and logic show that a democracy cannot survive. Even the unquestionable patriotism of our military is necessarily based on a very thin foundation given that all of our young have been “educated” in the same way.
Our technological civilization is very fragile. Given an increasingly illiterate and immature society, unrealistic domestic policies and expectations, and rising threats from abroad, we have a witches brew of potential problems looming and not a lot of basis for optimism.
Our country at the time of the Revolution was peopled largely by self-reliant individualists with strong moral convictions. Today we are predominantly the antithesis of those early settlers. Our coming storm is more likely to result in disaster than in triumph.
The health care “crisis” is contrived. The same pretty much goes for global warming and the need for Cap and Trade. Six months into his term Mr. Obama is losing support in the polls and he has yet to face a genuine crisis. I think we are experiencing the lull before the storm. Any of the following could generate a real crisis:
1. California defaults.
2. More bank failures.
3. Commercial real estate values crash.
4. A successful terrorist attack on American soil.
5. More corporate skulduggery is discovered on Wall Street.
We are nowhere close to sorting out America’s many problems. Crises have been deferred, but not solved. The Democratic leadership will show itself too incompetent, too ideological, or too corrupt to deliver the necessary solutions when the time comes. There will be dark days ahead.
4. Whiskey
“But lets be clear on one thing: inside America the elites and the White Middle Class are clearly mortal enemies.”
Good post Whiskey, and close to the truth.
I’ve said for sometime that the underlying conflict is between wannabe-aristocrats who want to separate themselves from the serfs and make it impossible for the damned freedom-lovers to ever again rise up and challenge their wealth and power. The ism’s are merely a front for these people. They aren’t idealogical, they are simply greedy and power-mad. That includes their pitch-man Obama, imho.
But “Mortal Enemies” is a bit strong and sweeping. Certainly, it applies to Rahm Emanuel, Obama, Pelosi, Reaper Reid and their corrupt and criminal ilk. But many of the Liberal Gentry like Warren Buffet you talk about have simply been swept up in the 24×7 propaganda that permeates every aspect of the Left. I would characterize them more like most German people in the 1930′s……fools, and guily by association, but not people who actively sought to be mass-murderers.
What does Obama do? His hands are tied by decades of moral and ethical lapses he can hardly be blamed for. Tell us what he should do when about 1/3 of the country lead by the Palinite Born Again crowd hates him no matter what he says or does. They twist his words and even flat out lie to incite fear and anger in us rather than inspiring Americans to be better people. Of course the lefties similarly demonized Bush. The events are not only going to drive Obama, they will determine the future of all of us no matter who we elect. Afghanistan, health care, energy, WMD’s, etc coupled massive budget deficits, what’s the answer? Cut budgets and jobs as long as it doesn’t hurt me? Extend American military might to protect our cheap oil addiction? VDH is on the mark – except the problem is at home not in the White House. The health care issue seems to be bringing out the worst in us. How about a 1/2 burger, XXL fry and 1 liter soda for dinner? No problem, the Nanny State will treat your diabetes, heart disease and maybe even give you a prescription for Viagra. And DON’T mess with my socialist Medicare program!
TV last week : Pres Obama – in person – ” Doctors must change how they treat patients..
“Doctors TAKE THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH TOO SERIOUSLY”…..
Pres. Obama just created a tectonic eruption – of my medical oath (of 33 yrs).
I urge you respond muscularly to stanch this wide-open hemorrage of moral understanding. The Pres. is warp-speeding backwards past gulag to “all-against-all”.
Thank you for your life’s work. Could you have known there would be lives in the balance?
p.s.
I have worked years (!) in “public option”. “communitarian” medicine: Chicago’s Cook County Hospital (then the USA’s largest, inner-city)…..where we under- and mal-treated patients by default. The Machine routinely siphoned off embezzled millions. CCH therefore lacked emergency equipment, lacked trained emergency personnel. On the gynecology ward alone, one yojung woman died unncessarily every 10 days – . The MD’s reported to the press, and the DA. Attacking swiftly, The Dem. Machine arrested, convicted, and imprisoned the 12 MD leaders. (One legal resident was threatened with deportation unless he ‘abjured’).
Chicago’s ‘public option’ hospital diverted trained operating room nurses to swat flies, to keep them off of anesthetitzed patients’ open chests, bellies, and brains) (Long-neglected holes in windows).
Political patronage nurses could not be-stir themselves from cross-word puzzles to assist at the bedside of “code-blue” patients whose hearts had the nerve to stop, on their shift.
San Francisco General Hospital: cockroaches in patients’ rooms, ANTS IN THE I.V. TUBING.
I was ordered to “clear out bed #1″ in the neurology ward (transl: get rid of the living 50 yr
old woman lying in it. It is tradition that the new medical team arriving each month, should find a clean
empty bed. Suggestion: disconnect her ventilator. When she proceeded to breathe on her own
a mortal injection of potassium chloride succeeded.
San Francisco’s ‘common-weal’ was not interested in supplying another neuro bed.
Every public-hospital, ‘public-option’ MD has drawers’-full of such personal thumbnails.
“Public option” has no external governance, the one necessity of ALL governance. ‘ You can’t fight the fedsl’ is profound understanding.
A patient ONLY expects medical care because the Hippocratic oath binds the willing physician. A sick person correctly expects care of her/his particular illness – NOT competing from the neighborhood’s common-weal (another jogging trail? park?) That becomes “all-against-all”, or group-against-group.
Shall we ration emergency surgery to gang-members’ gunshot wounds? How many bullet-surgeries do they merit?
Drug-overdoses? How many accidental OD rescues is an addict worth?
High-risk pregnancies? How many per woman, before we “give her the pain pill instead”?
AIDS, how many deserve treatment, per neighborhood? Per zip code?———-
Doc, Minrva’s right. Have a family conference and come to a decision. Then get on with it. I suspect with just an announcement you could easily raise millions and attract advisors who could help you organize. It’s time for Cincinnatus’s of this country to get out from behind their ploughs and get back into the fight. And you are one of the better Cincinnatus’s. If not you, who? If not now, when?
Dr T:
“Switzerland, anyone?”
I’d be a little more optimistic than this. The Average American may not know what he wants, but he seems to have a pretty good idea of what he doesn’t want. Ten months ago he didn’t want another Republican president. Now, for some reason, Average American doesn’t want the president he elected to run health care (though it is possible he just no longer wants anything Obama is selling).
Why the change? Average American is not as stupid as you portray. Behind all the inflammatory rhetoric — Palin’s Death Panels, untold trillions added to the deficit, Barney Frank in charge of diversity quotas for urologists-in-training (O.K., I made that one up) — lies a deep distrust of Obamacare. IMO this distrust is warranted.
The Death Panel slur is a good example. The legislation on end-of-life counseling was a tipoff that something else was in the works. End-of-life counseling and hospice services have been available in every system I’ve worked in over the past 20 years. These services are reimbursed. Why this was included in the congressional package remains a mystery to me. Removing it proved Sarah Palin had a point. You know Obama’s in trouble when the epitome of dumber ‘n dirt Average American, Sarah Palin, bests him on a proposal in his own legislation.
This is a small but significant crack in the facade of omniscience behind which our Dear Leader hides. With distrust comes skepticism, which I expect may go viral here shortly.
So I’ve learned they’ve dropped the so called ‘Death Panels’. And they’ve dropped the so called ‘Public Option’.
They gave billions to the banks and the automobile companies. If they can give billions to Blue Cross, Blue Shield, and the rest to bid to insure citizens who have social security numbers who have pre-existing conditions or not, I just might go for it.
In the meantime, I had doubts about the original plan and flagged myself at flag at Whitehouse dot gov. A lot of people are doing it.
Who’s reading those emails anyway? Vee half ways of…
Whiskey, your comments about what constitute an entrenched, permanent enemy, the White Middle Class, sounds a bit 1984-ish – but it provides what will amount to a long-standing critical distraction for Obama to point at while ramming legislation through with a supermajority.
As others have noted, though, the Democrats have an enormous legislative advantage, a very vocal enemy (in those who speak up in opposition to ObamaCare), and still they cannot get what they want. I wonder if the Democrats in Congress are starting to “go wobbly” on Obama, because they know this broad response to ObamaCare is going to come right back around to them on election day. That people are coming out to speak against what’s happening, on a non-voting day, well, they haven’t really seen a hell of a lot of that, ever. And it’s happening everywhere in the country, crossing gender, age, race, and every other demographic. It could just be that the bleating crowd in Congress has been cowed by the voice of the people – which is why they retreat from these public meetings and castigate the attendees from a safe distance.
I’m still of the firm belief that simple facts will open eyes, and I’m afraid that too many people fail to ever look at the CBO reports online, or talk about them with friends, or realize that the top half of income-earners pay 97% of all income taxes collected. That type of information doesn’t get displayed under Katie Couric’s face, ever, nor is its long-term rationality ever questioned publicly. It would certainly be questioned if the lower half were paying 97% of all the income taxes collected, but we wouldn’t have a functioning government if that were the case.
Everything has a cost. The people that continually fail to understand this very basic math are those people who’ve never been responsible for covering payroll, or paying for their education, or having to work two jobs for 3 years to pay for simple home improvements – because somebody else has bailed them out. Sooner or later, you have to cover your own bills, even if you’re in Congress. It’s called “growing up”.
1. After what Jimmy Carter did to our country, we came back stronger then ever. It’s possible that may happen again.
2. We will be hit by an islamic terror attack before the end of the OBama presidency. This will doom the Demoncrats
3. The Republicans has 12 years to balance the budget and set the country on the road to prosperity………and they didn’t.
4. The Democrats did everything they could to bring out the Bush Presidency and by so doing, they inherited a weakened America. I blame them for this.
“I wonder if the Democrats in Congress are starting to “go wobbly” on Obama”
This wobbliness started before Michael Jackson’s death. I still suspect that the cap and trade bill passed the House of Representatives only because the country’s attention was distracted by the singer’s departure from this veil of tears. It allowed Nancy Pelosi to stick it good and hard to the reluctant legislators. And if that had occurred—Barack Obama would have become a marginalized figure in the White House. Still, I think it’s over. Am I getting a bit carried away? Do I enjoy living in a fantasy world? We will find out for sure in the near future.
3. proreason:
You’re quite right and if an American loving leader doesn’t emerge from this cacophony in time we just may wind up like the Athenians traped on a lonely Aegean beach.
ann carroll md:
The URL for your site is invalid.
My understanding is that “Doctors TAKE THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH TOO SERIOUSLY” is a quote from a JAMA article last year, by Ezekial Emanuel MD (Rahm’s brother). If Obama said this as well, please provide the link. I plan to check the JAMA article.
Bad enough that Dr Emanuel is a healthcare advisor in Obama’s administration. If Obama thinks this way, then Sarah Palin’s not too far off with her Death Panel characterization.
Now all we need is to hear from John Holdren — Obama’s science czar — on the issue of eugenics and population control, and we can put the last nail in the Obamacare coffin and bury it for good.
The more Obama campaigns, via the endless town halls, on health care (er, “Insurance,”) the more dishonest he seems to be. He blasts the insurance companies unreasonably while ignoring ambulance-chasing lawyers who run up the insurance premiums for all of us. He claims the health care bill will pay for itself over 10 years. The more he talks the bigger windbag he becomes. He’s on tv more often than the weatherman during a hurricane–wearing out any welcome voters have left. GOOD.
It’s looking like our democracy is still working. The People shut Obamacare down with their outrage. Now We The People need to drive home the point that it’s not just healthcare we’re outraged over. It’s the whole Socialist agenda of the Democrats in Congress.
Obama is a dyed in the wool radical. He will go down with guns blazing, I pray he will miss most of his targets.
Per VDH:
“The Republicans so far have not offered any alternative for Obamism. They need to craft a plan that shows us how we are to be balancing budgets in 24 months, and paying down the debt in 36.
Federal spending must be frozen immediately at the rate of inflation, before being reduced.
Americans must invest more and consume less.
Critics must offer a plan to save Social Security and Medicare from themselves, and make health care more competitive and perhaps more cash-based.”
This makes sense.
Are you going to be part of these solutions?
@bill – “Tell us what he should do when about 1/3 of the country lead by the Palinite Born Again crowd hates him no matter what he says or does. They twist his words and even flat out lie to incite fear and anger in us rather than inspiring Americans to be better people. ”
—————–
Oh the cheap irony. It was okay to twist words and even flat out lie when Palin was your (plural) target, but *now* you’re outraged. Well, too late. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
# 6 Dr. T
You are so wrong about Americans.
You belong in Switzerland.
Good reading Dr. Hanson.
I was one of the original supporters of United Health Care overhaul.
Not just the US system but the company also.
United Health Care of Minn. has doubled its 2nd quarter profits on 21 billion premium receipts.
Government Medicare part D ripping off doctors and medical providers and even theft of agents commissions are part of their overall schemes.
They cheated me out of $6,000 dollars in commissioned sales.
Due to injuries suffered in Vietnam I became a salesman so that I could still contribute to the capitalist system and not become a disabled burden. It was my patriotic choice and I raised kids that still pay taxes and work for honest wages.
Now that I am 63 years old I can go to the VA for health care but my 61 year old wife has nothing-
We can not afford to pay UHC 500 per month on her 550 per month wages- She actually makes a thousand but you know after state federal FICA SS taxes and contributions to the illegal aliens funds.
Anyway…
United Health Care paid a 50 million dollar fine for dishonesty, but still continues to screw agents, doctors, and clients and you the American taxpayers.
Talk about your rationing of health care?
I am sure that the president of UHC is smiling and has ordered cases of Chteau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1996 so they can sit around and toast Nancy Pelosi and Harry Greed and Bambie’s teleprompters stupidity.
The Reid-Pelosi 1,000 page book of toilet tissue items has turned a level playing field into a Roman Vomit bath house.
I am sure when they finish reading it- a clause for Mexican pig farmers will be alimented.
And even though I supported some kind of health overhaul I have now turned totally against the democrats plan.
And hell- I am a registered democrat- imagine that?
These clowns are destroying what was left of a great party.
I look for a Whig or Independent to be the next president-
Could we ever do any worse?
Hope and change.
Isn’t that what you, Barack, have been talking about for the last two plus years?
But did you and your henchmen seriously believe that, for the last 200 plus years, America, the land of the free enterprise system and the American citizens within her, with bated breath, were wishin’ and hopn’ for a President who would walk us down the garden path of Socialism?
Is that what you thought my friend?
Well, if you did, then you and your bride and your chief of staff and all your office boys were way off base. You guys were so off you were campaigning in a different time zone.
Frankly, the American people, especially when it comes to health care, don’t appreciate your trying to grab 17% of our economy and make it your personal domain.
We don’t relish the thought of newly hired bureaucratic buddies trying to justify their cushy jobs by getting between us and our doctors, and trying to decide in their infinite wisdom whether or not we need a certain procedure or test, especially a lifesaving one.
All the red flags Sarah Palin has been raising about your health care scheme, I’m sorry to say, have been spot on.
Barack, buddy, can you understand that?
I mean, you and your government friends will keep your cozy doctor patient relationships because your health care won’t come under the bureaucratic managed one you plan to foist on us.
You keep the good kind of health care, and give us your new kind of health care; not reform, but health overhall.
I mean, taking a wrecking ball to our health care system isn’t reform. Reform is signing a clause that medicine won’t be rationed and adding the language to the Obama health care bill. Something you refuse to do.
That’s a reform, Barack.
An example of Reform in government, Barack, is doing away with earmarks, which, by the way you pledged to do during your primary.
Then once elected you signed a bill with 9,000 earmarks. Remember? Stimulus I? Your first major disaster. Your first major lie.
Our main concern is that you’re lying about health care reform now the same way you lied about the elimination of earmarks during the primaries.
Can you understand the pattern of falsehoods, fabrications, deceit and maybe more accurate, outright lies you’re a part of? It’s a cause for concern.
It doesn’t engender trust. It’s unappealing in a President.
For once you lose the people’s trust, it’s not easy to get it back. And Barack, I’m sorry to say, to me you’re not that symbol of honesty and integrity that I saw on that January day when you were sworn in.
You still may be able to send a tingle up an NBC anchor’s leg, and make women swoon, but that’s not enough for me. I guess even at 21 years old, I’m old fashioned. If I go ga-ga, it’s over leaders who possess oodles of honesty and integrity. That turns me on.
The extent you’ll go to acquire power is only now starting to sink in. And it’s a real turn off.
Bottom line, Barack, between your attack on free enterprise, your Stimulus I, a disguised monetary giveaway in large part to big-wig supporters, your nomination of a bigoted, hard core racist, Sonia Sotomayor. Your cruel criticism of a Cambridge police Sgt, one of the best and brightest officers in all the these United States because he arrested an offensive, belligerent, apparently racist Harvard professor friend of yours was uncalled for. Especially since you had no facts to support your slander.
Barack, what are the American people to do with you? You do speak and dress so well.
We elected you to be the first black man to take his rightful turn; to stand watch on our ship of state. To preserve, protect and defend us from all enemies foreign and domestic.
And you’re proved not to be worthy of our confidence. We’re a freedom loving Republic. And you’ve decided we should become a socialist Euro kind of nation.
I hate to say you’re headed down lame duck highway, but I’m afraid you are.
Barack, with our ship of state, you’ve unfortunately demonstrated that you can’t be trusted. Barack, you quack like a lame duck president. You talk like a lame duck president. You make horrible choices like a lame duck president.
And that’s called sad. Because it appears that’s what you are.
“And, let us pray, for the next thirty years we will learn that if a candidate has no executive experience, had a history of eliminating his senatorial rivals through leaked divorce records, was the most partisan of some 100 Senators in his brief two-year tenure, had a disturbing affinity for radical anti-Americans like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, then he really was ruthless, largely inexperienced, and not at all convinced that America has ever been an exceptional nation.”
This, in a nutshell, is the essence of why Americans should really examine a presidential candidate before voting for him. Obama was not a mystery. His past was laid out for anyone who bothered to take the time to just read it. And yet those same independants and Democrats who complain about Obama now are “shocked, shocked,” that he’s not the man they voted for. What nonsense. Obama always was and always will be a big-spending liberal and probably a closet socialist, although he would never openly admit it. All of his budget policies show him to be a socialist in the classic European sense. He’s for huge government intervention in everything, just like the Europeans. He controls the banks, two of the three auto companies, AIG, has spent almost a trillion (yes America, that’s a trillion with a “T”) dollars on a stimulus package that hasn’t stimulated anything except a handful of government jobs, and he passed an omnibus budget packed with pork, even though he vowed during the election that he would go down “Line by line” on any budget and eliminate the pork. And now he wants to nationalize healthcare, as in Europe or Canada. And this guy isn’t a socialist? Please. His policies need to be defeated and he and his ilk (Pelosi and Reid come to mind) need to be voted out of office as quickly as possible. It may take years to undo the damage he has done, but it just shows that you should really look at a person’s record rather than simply believing in “Hope and Change.”
one commenter post that they were worse situations. I don’t think so. THIS IS A FULL ASSUALT ON THE AMERICAN LIFE AND LIBERTY. I really think congress is to stupid to know the true implications but for the whitehouse THIS WAS THE PLAN and they will try again and again until voted out.
here is a short video clip …it highlights how marxism has been using education to spread their ideology in north america
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmbcyeZ9ic&feature=related
it is all in this short clip ..why trolls keep using the same arguments regardless of what they are shown.
VDH ..as always very insightfull.
I think you are wrong on the Obama. I agree with a lot about what you say about the Bush administration. But the radical change Obama is pushing for ..it is MARXISM plain and simple. He already has the big pieces in place. The economy is destroyed, just no one is admitting it. The plans he had for health care would sealed his power.
Also a big problem not addressed regarding Bush. Bush did not cull the democrats in the non elected positions in government. especially where they had influnce on policy decisions.
Of course, President Obama will recover. Your folks do not give him enough credit. He has withheld the stimulus money and will not put it into action until 2010. Then, he will distribute it properly to defuse any “personal” dissatisfaction with the economic situation.
Just last evening I read an article about the solar power industry being hit very hard by the low oil prices. Spain has stopped giving subsidies for alternative power plants, and AMERICAN MONEY HAS NOT YET COME ON LINE TO PROP UP THE COMPANIES WHO ARE IN TROUBLE. It is not time yet. “Cap and Trade” will raise fuel prices and President Obama will jump in with money for solar energy companies. That’s is the way a good Chicago politician would handle the situation: create a crisis and then rush in to look like a savior.
It seems it did not take long for most of the country to finally realize just what Obama and his administration are all about and do not like what they are seeing. His poll numbers keep going down and I doubt they will ever go back up. When people realize that they were deceived they usually will not listen to those that deceived them in the first place. He has shown clearly that he and his administration are dishonest and not really concerned with what the country really needs.
Dear Prof. Hanson:
Ms Sibelius (the President’s Medicare chief) is demanding payment “clawbacks” from physicians who still treat Medicare or MedicAid patients. Typically the amount demanded is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Despite being paid so little for over 80-hr-per week labor keeping these patients alive, 2 of my long-time private practice colleagues could not afford to take a paycheck in 2008…..because government failed to pay the costs. Both MD’s are the main pillars of our small medical corps, in our medically-underserved Mexican agriculural town.
Pres. Obama (the man behind the curtain) has Ms Sibelius now demanding a “clawback” from one- The administration contends a 88 yr old patient- functioning, alert, living at home with family- did not merit her pacemaker. It saved her from death in ’05.
Cold FEAR of such federal attack stops docs from organizing against the pols. Recall the Chicagp Machine convicted and JAILED that brave band of doctor leaders who dropped the dime on the mayor & his boys? 11 MD’s carry that ‘felony’ in their public files forever.
The feds use tools of control over MD’s – so severe that by comparison the IRS are pussy-cats. We fear attacks on our medical license (an incomplete chart record – one paper missing!- is cause for license suspension…as is 1 DUI, while OFF DUTY; politically “arranged” med-mal lawsuits, brought by ‘wired’ lawyers, and now Medicare/medic-aid “clawback” extortion threats….
By DESIGN these political ‘tazers’ and ‘electrified fences” are EXACTLY how The Feds/The Machine keeps America’s doctors in the pen.
Have you noticed the silence from physicians? HR 3200 is an historic watershed in America’s health care- built up so painstakingly since Fleming came up with penicillin pre-WW 2….. to be wrecked by our most venal untermenchen in a moment. And the MD’s are silent? ASK WHY!
Zero’s that walking contradiction, an effeminate thug. By the time the real thugs of the world are done with him America will have been severely ass raped.
Our present President is looking increasingly like two former British Prime Ministers.
At home, on domestic policy, he strongly resembles James Ramsey MacDonald, a Labour firebrand as a Parliamentary back-bencher who, as PM, tried to remake the entire British economy, “social contract”, etc., while quoting at length from Fabian Society tracts. He ended up forced into running a coalition government with moderates to to avoid a Conservative takeover in Commons, and finally lost his job when the coalition collapsed. After which he lost his party leadership post as well, because the Labour Party blamed him for their losses. (He was only carrying out the party’s policies, but apparently they concluded the problem was him, not the policies.)
As for foreign policy, he is looking more and more like Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), who while a “comfortable” sort at home (he both preceded and succeeded MacDonald at No. 10), proved to be utterly clueless as to what was going on across the Channel, specifically in Germany. (In his memoirs, he admitted it.)
If you combine MacDonald’s domestic radicalism with Baldwin’s international naivete’, you get- pretty much what we have in the Oval Office right now.
If anyone really wants to help President Obama, and this country, giving him biographies of these two men to read might be a good place to start.
clear ether
eon
“Racial hectoring” will not stop until after the next elections.
A new major terror attack will give =:obama a chance to play hero.
All “crises” (like the coming fall Flu hokey) increase =:o’s power.
The Nelson Rockefeller Country Club Republicans “HAVE no alternative”?
They ARE no alternative — TO anything nor FOR anything. Go Galt.
Hello
“Our Constitution is singular.”
What good is having a singular constitution if it’s not enforced?
I’m European. And from where I’m standing, it looks like your federal government has taken a lot of power not granted to them in your constitution.
It looks to me from reading your constitution that your country has a set of laws that are in fact invalid.
Good points all today! My fear is that as Obama continues his downward spiral, those in the background that really pull the strings (Rahm, Pelosi, etc.) will be clawing for every bit of liberal “change” they can muster before they are forced to turn over the keys to the White House. What more havoc will they wreak before they are shown the door?
“After just eight months, the President is
at a 50/50 cross-roadsLESS THAN 50% in the polls. The once hope-and-change exuberance has dissipated. Such unpopularity is hardly new; what is novel is the rapidity in which a 70%+ approval rating has plummeted to50%.UNDER 50%..”FIFY, Doc.
This, in a nutshell, is the essence of why Americans should really examine a presidential candidate before voting for him. Obama was not a mystery. His past was laid out for anyone who bothered to take the time to just read it. And yet those same independants and Democrats who complain about
Finding about Obama required research. That takes time and effort. Also people thought that in case there was something fishy about Obama those who are supposed to investigate and tell the public (that is journamists) would carry the bad news so they (the voters) wouldn’t need to do their own fact finding. It is hard to work for something (here the truth) when you believe you will get it without moving a finger
Compound this with a strong wish that America had a Black president so the slavery and discrimination sins could be left behind once and for all. Change Obama’s color to white and even in case he didn’t lose a single Black vote it is dubious he would have been elected. Just think in Colin Powell when polls gave him a close tp 20 percent lead over Clinton had he accepted to run in 1996. No doubt Colin Powell was popular after Desert Storm but that alone doesn’t make a 20 percent lead.
Heads up!
Great VDH article at National Review Online, Monday 8/17
We made it thru the Civil War. We will make it thru this. The Socialist Utopia is as much a lost cause as the Confederacy.
“Gargantuan New Debt”
The President with the complicity of the Dem dominated Congress, has spent wildly and proposed further irresponsible spending in the form of “Cap and Tax” and Obamacare.
Hanson is right. The Republicans need to offer concrete proposals to bring back fiscal sanity and growth. They need to en masse refuse to vote in favor of legislation that is not revenue neutral or damages our ability to compete internationally. This President and Congress are spending at a logarythmicly higher rate than any government since 1942. Back then there was a reason to spend, today offers no parallel.
The President may not realize this, but he has damaged himself badly because he is losing his veneer of credibility. Health care especially looks like fraud when American’s begin to discern what is actually in the House bill. His spokes people are ineffective in providing him protection. Gibbs looks feckless. Biden comes off as incompetent and a comic figure in many regards. Notice how he has been out of sight for several weeks now? Sebelius looks completely overmatched trying to defend Obamacare.
It appears this President is headed for Carter/Bush like popularity at warp speed.
Eon at 41 Great analysis! What about Clement Atlee? The President reminds me alot of him.
JFM–> Change Obama’s color to white and even in case he didn’t lose a single Black vote it is dubious he would have been elected.
What are you basing this claim on? Generic presidential ballot polling showed any Democrat beating the Republicans by at least 14 points. Obama polled much lower than the Generic democrat, which at that time would have been Edwards or Clinton. In fact, the country was so fed up by the Republican party’s incompetence and rhetoric that they would have voted for anyone with a D behind their name. If race played any role, it was probably in diminishing his winning numbers, not increasing them.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbcpoll20071108.pdf
The more this circus plays out, the more it looks like Medvedev (Obama) and Putin (Emanuel).
“Of course, President Obama will recover. Your folks do not give him enough credit. He has withheld the stimulus money and will not put it into action until 2010. Then, he will distribute it properly to defuse any “personal” dissatisfaction with the economic situation.”
I think this will be true for a lot of people with the “what have you done for me lately” mentality. Others of us, though, are not going to be bought off. I’m a Dem, and I’m planning to vote for any and every one with an R next to their name in 2010, and that’s not going to change.
The democratic party is a criminal enterprise, pass it on.
ROFL, because wingnut GOPers have SO many ideas… Racists, birthers, deathers, creationist whackjobs, Christianists, greedy businessmen, on and on it goes. American HATES Republicans and it’s going DOWN!!!!
Excellent analysis of our country’s strength and weakness(es).
But these “radicals” (commies, black supremacists, and islamophiles) aren’t going to disappear, nor mellow.
They have all the power now and I sincerely don’t know what they will do to keep it.
I think that Freedom-loving Americans need to get ready for really hard times.
The media, Soros, and the “october surprise” of triggering Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac financial meltdown have elected an administration of commies.
Commies don’t play politics, they play war.
Now they control the census and the districting, and they drop the charges when Black Panthers get to the polls armed…
The next elections could be difficult.
Chavez-difficult.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
And they’re also not buying Krugman’s Kristallnacht economics. Once again, the peasants aren’t buying the absurdities coming from the officially annointed experts. And the experts are furious. It’s personal.
“The next six months are critical, both at home and abroad.”
Uhhh…forgive me for asking, but for whom, exactly???
Not for the average American, if as you state, you believe in “the resilience and good sense of Americans”. We will slog through this mess of 10% unemployment, foreclosures still rampant, banks failing, and continued loss of confidence in the economy. YES, we have seen worse…
…but how MUCH MORE worse can it get before we stop saying that?
ALL the factors are just “outside the door” to blow THAT rosey picture all to smithereens.
And we are placing are HOPES in THIS administration??? In THIS Congress???????
Don’t think so…ain’t happening this year, next year or 3 years from now!
Let’s call it where it lays…
The next 6 months to a YEAR is critical for OBAMA and the Democrats in Congress!
And I for one, get now great pleasure from watching them implode. (Okay, maybe a little!)
Nice to see the fight and pushback from the paying middle class. I hope it goes further and in the 2010 mid-term elections there is a massive change at the polls. The country needs new blood, from both sides. Time to get rid of the career politians and no more lawyers.
In light of the viral hatred of the Left – as well shown by some posters on this thread (#56) and elsewhere at PJM – I am ironically encouraged by the dying vestiges of the Left unmasked, which clearly reveal the “diversity” of their hatred (whether Bush, Palin or, merely freedom, responsibility…).
Ah, yes…”diversity”: http://diversitylane.wordpress.com/
#50 Samizdat
Thanks. :-)
As for Attlee, his term as PM (1945-51) was marked by the “Austerity” policy in Britain, in which all public policy was subordinated to “getting Britain back on its feet” after WWII. His policies (which are in fact remarkably like those advocated by President Obama on environmental grounds) are generally considered to have helped turn the UK’s postwar recession into a near-depression. And it was his economic policies, not his foreign policy that resulted in his ouster as PM in 1951, to be replaced, like MacDonald, by his predecessor; who in Attlee’s case, happened to be Sir Winston Churchill, whom he had served as Deputy PM in the wartime coalition government (1942-45).
On the foreign front,Attlee handled a fairly nasty situation moderately well in India (by sending Lord Mountbatten of Burma to handle it for him), made a bad situation worse in the Palestine mandate prior to the rebirth of the state of Israel (by completely misunderstanding the situation and ordering Jewish refugees held on Cyprus to pander to the Arab League), and in the end at least got it right with the Berlin Airlift and support for the Greek government vs. the Communist insurrection in 1946-47 (when more than a few of his own party were rooting for the insurrectionists).
About the best that can be said of Attlee in foreign policy is that he wasn’t another Stanley Baldwin. And that actually isn’t a bad thing.
clear ether
eon
American society today is a culture of one thirds – one third consevative, traditional, one third liberal, socialist, and the pivotal third in the middle. The reason that I am not as sanguine about the country coming to its senses and recovering its direction as is Professor Hanson is that middle third.
Try this experiment tonight at home. Turn on your television, and assuming that you receive cable or satellite signals, randomly select ten channels from the plethora of offerings with which you are daily presented. Now, calculate the number of your randomly selected channels that you could watch with every member of your family, all ages, and not be utterly offended or worry that someone watching will see or hear something that they probably should not. Now, add to that number those programs which would insult the intelligence of a moron. Subtract the sum of these two categories from the number 10. Your remainder is what… 2, 1… 0? Probably closer to zero.
The plain fact is that American television programming is a moral and intellectual wasteland. It’s worse than worthless, it’s corrosive. Much of it is barbaric.
So what does this have to do with the middle third of our population? I suspect that it is this: many, many Americans define their views by what they see on “T.V.”, and they ARE watching television – lot’s of it. The ability of a populace saturated in this baloney to govern itself is in grave doubt. Perhaps a third of our population no longer apply any critical thinking to either their daily lives or their voting. Added to that are all of the divisive factors in our culture to which Professor Hanson refers, and to which we have all been witness in the early months of the Obama administration. It’s not a matter of conservatives better articulating the sort of moral course that we should be taking. A majority of “We the People” need to actually “get it” and then be willing to commit themselves to the tough decisions that are required to turn the country around.
A third of the population (or more) will be watching “American Idol”, “The Office” and “Extreme Cage Fighting” tonight and chattering about them at work tomorrow morning. And these people vote. It’s scary.
Short of a few miracles, I don’t see how the American experiment can be rescued from an inglorious end.
Barack Obama isn’t taking the Presidential Oath too seriously.
56. @Crusader
Dang, dude! Your pithy and spot on characterization of Republicans is nothing short of astounding! And so nuanced. But please tone it down a bit next time. Your glowing aura of brilliance hurts my eyes.
/sark off
I like the fact that you refer to Americans as Americans and not as “the American people”. For some reason, I really dislike that phrase.
Elites and the middle class are not necessarily mortal enemies. Justthat this set of elites have set themselves to work AGAINST the middle class rather than offering leadership to them.
As I’ve been saying for awhile, we are trying to replace our current elites without guillotining or defenestrating them. However, elites are most interested in perpetuating their elitedom.
Shape up or ship out!
As to the Republicans, one could hope that they are holding their fire until closer to the 2010 elections. That might be good tactics. When your opponent is busy digging themselves a hole, why stop or distract them?
What they said.
Now, not later.
Gideon’s Band belly-crawling
through the grass-roots to
Bell the cat from below.
Lead, follow, or get the
Hell out of the way.
#51 Moho – For once, I mostly agree with you. Clinton would have won, too (although not Edwards). McCain lost it when he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong, then the market collapsed the same day. He had already admitted economics was not his strong suit.
AS for voting for anyone with an “R”, that’s ridiculous, too. Make fiscal conservatism your sole criterion. Starve the Beast. Cut off the money.
As for coming back from this, there is tremendous institutional damage, systemic damage. Is there another Reagan out there who can clearly enunciate principles and inspire real confidence and trust? One cannot come back without someone to truly rakky the nation.
17. Ann Carroll MD:
Stunning. Shocking.
The future. Only it will be everywhere, not just the inner city . . .
Eon, I have to disagree about Atlee, Mountbatten and India. If Mountbatten had not botched it, as he did most things in his career, we would not have a Pakistan with nuclear weapons and a shaky corrupt government. Prof Hansen, an excellent piece once again.
Crusader is in for a hella shock come November of next year. Him and Eva Braun will likely begin looking for their bunker.
I am a Repubulican but I have a different view. I think Repubicans have no one to blame but themselves. While I think the country is more fiscally conservative than Obama, I think it is also more socially liberal than the Republicans. I didn’t vote in the last election but it had nothing to do with McCain.
I had simply had it with the religious right, fiscal irresponsibility, illegal immigration, an unwillingness to face the fact that health care needed some serious tweeking regarding access, etc. on the part of the Republican Party. And…I think Sarah Palin will never be ready for prime time.
Perhaps I should re-register as an independant.
47. JFM:
“Finding about Obama required research. That takes time and effort. Also people thought that in case there was something fishy about Obama those who are supposed to investigate and tell the public (that is journamists) would carry the bad news so they (the voters) wouldn’t need to do their own fact finding.”
Interesting point. Plus, if some of those people who voted for Dohbie even *did* decide to do some research and found some troubling things the MSM weren’t reporting, those particular voters might have figured it was all lies, false information or hype. That’s why the MSM really F└┘cked up the election process by not doing their job.
Remember when you were called a racist for saying Obama had a Muslim background? Then, when Obama himself decides to use his Muslim background to his advantage…OOPS.
Pathetic.
JFM–> Change Obama’s color to white and even in case he didn’t lose a single Black vote it is dubious he would have been elected.
What are you basing this claim on? Generic presidential ballot polling showed any Democrat beating the Republicans by at least 14 points.
Given how narrower the final results were, despite a seven to one edge in campaign funding for Obama, a crisis unfairly set at republican’s feet and McCain’s disastrous performance in its handling (first he tells he stops campaigning and skips debate then he comes) I can only say that either polling over a year before elections (ie when people aren’t paying attention to politics) and without knowing candidates is a stupid ida or your pollsters were downright dishonest or high on crack: let’s have FreedieMac implode just a few weeks later or MacCain be a little less stupid (something pollsters could not foresee) and either Obama wins only by at most 2% or downright loses.
Now as I said have Obama say and do the same things he did, with same friends, same bio and his paper thin record at getting anything done. Put it in front of a telprompter uttering platitudes over hope and change. Everything identical to the real Obama but a white skin and he loses. That assumming he is not laughed out off the stage at the first Democratic primaries.
Damndest “Executive Branch” in American history. Appears as though Rahm Emmanuel is trying to manage The United States as though we are a pliant Chicago Burrough.
Gentlemen, Obama and Emmanuel, The United States is not a Chicago community organization project.
Regards.
Obama could promise us that we’d get the same quality health care as Congress and it wouldn’t make a difference. Why? Because after the Stimulus and Cap and Trade, he lost almost all of his credibility. It doesn’t matter what he says if people don’t believe him; just like people didn’t believe George Bush when he spelled out how his Social Security Reform would work.
4. whiskey: I agree with everything except the last paragraph which is pure fantasy.
When the country was underseiged: stagflation, 17% interest rate, high energy prices, rationed gasoline, over a hundred days hostages crisis, yet Reagan only managed to squeak by Carter. We may have a Carter II in the White House, but we don’t have a Reagan II ready to squeak by.
Btw, the Chinese do not have to fight a cold war with us. Obama had just signed an agreement with them to provide quality control to their pharma industry, and they will provide us with “cheaper” drug. That is: we give the world confidence to buy from the Chinese and let them dominate the $300 billion generic drug industry. Why did Obama do that? Why did the Chinese continue to buy our treasuries? The Chinese won not a hot war, not a cold war, but the economic war. And we are still fighting each other for a shrinking slice of the economic pie.
Remember, every dollar of the 2,000-billion-dollar deficit we now have (another way of saying $2 trillion…an unfathomable number) was authorized by Democrats who have controlled the purse strings since January of 2007.
Congress has spent two thousand billion more dollars than it has taken in.
And the Democrats have the gall to say others are irresponsible?
stop ..STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS …if after viewing the video link below and you still think there is some value in engaging them go ahead. BUT WATCH THIS CLIP ..the whole interview is also worth watching.
watch this clip and you will understand why they continue to make the same arguments over and over no matter what they are shown or told.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmbcyeZ9ic&feature=related
this clip gives great insight into the lefts blind following of an ideology that will bury them at the same time it buries us.
I believe it was Emerson who wrote, “Events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.” That adage has proven true, regardless of who has been president. How foolish of the Obama voters to think he could transcend that dynamic.
#71 Marc Malone.
Agreed- fiscal conservatism has to be the linchpin because it can appeal to a broader swath of the electorate. Furthermore, a citizen politician that can spread that bedrock principle along with an avowed commitment to personal liberty and privacy will have my vote. Examples of how such a platform/agenda could be interpreted:
If you’re a homosexual and want to get married, it’s none of my business nor the state’s so I will not stand in your way.
If you’re a pregnant woman who wants an abortion I will not legally enjoin you from doing so.
If you’re applying for any government job I will never use race, gender or sexual orientation in hiring criteria nor will I even gather such info.
You will be free to use your private property in whatever manner you see fit. To prevent you from doing so the onus will be on the governing authority to make a specific case articulating provable damages to the property rights, safety and liberty of other persons.
Lasty (and my personal favorite), I will consider it mandatory that any candidates for congress or president must have a minimum of five years experience as an adult working in the private sector.
I have felt for a while that:
Republicans have the vision of earthworms,
and Democrats have the vision of maggots.
Our entire “political class” has become dysfunctional.
We need a new one.
How can this be done?
80: This notion of pies is at the heart of the left-right divide. Or as I prefer to think of it, the production-consumption divide. If Obama and Congress were serious about reducing costs in medicine and health care, they’d be doing their level best to increase the supply of doctors and meds, to keep pace with our demand for the same. Instead, they’re permitting other nations to demand at- or nearly-at-cost pharmaceuticals and leaving Americans to pay the difference (that R&D has to be amortized somehow, particularly given that most attempted treatments are failures). They’re also cutting payments to doctors by fiat rulings such as those for medicare/medicaid – thus disincentivising anyone from seeking to become a doctor in the first place.
If Congress and this administration were serious about reforming health care and health insurance to provide better service at lower costs, I think we’d see something along these lines:
1. Guaranteed tuition payments for successful MD candidates (general practicioners especially, but also specialists), to be paid off by 6 or 4 years of service, to be spent serving as doctors in underserved areas of the US (or world, if we want to drag the Peace Corps into this – though personally I’d just as soon we fix our own supply-demand health care issues before trying to fix it for the rest of the planet), or in the military as a combat surgeon, respectively. Similar programs should be considered for biotech students, who would then work at CDC, military counter-biowar labs, or other similar programs.
2. Telling the rest of the world that the free ride on American pharma R&D is over – that those nations seeking price controls on American meds will see tariffs, etc unleashed on goods produced in their countries imported here, or an embargo of those medicines which are subject to their price controls. There is no justification for their demanding a free ride – medicine is not immune to the laws of economics.
In short, the more pies we produce, the bigger a slice everyone can then take. Needless to say, given those in charge of both the Congress and the Administration, I’m not holding my breath.
#80 ic:
Have to correct you on the 1980 election results. Reagan beat Carter by almost ten percentage points: 50.8 – 41.01%. That’s hardly “squeaking by.”
“Hey Hey Barack Hussein – How much debt did you add today?”
“Why this was included in the congressional package remains a mystery to me.” – Dr T
It was included because it was modified to not only reimburse, but to pay the doctor to *initiate* the conversation. In other words, bounties on DNR orders for grandparents. That is where the savings were supposed to materialize.
One thing that Obama’s medical ethicist’s (Zeke Emanuel) formula for valuing life doesn’t take into account is the impact of grandparents on their grandchildren’s lives. My Grandmother was born in the 1870s, and lived to 96. She lived a completely different kind of life, and knowing her enriched the lives of her many grandchildren.
I don’t think this is accounted for in Zeke’s system:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60137-9/abstract
80. ic,
Yikes! SCARY. I wouldn’t trust the Chinese with children’s toys, baby formula, toys, powdered milk or pet food and certainly NOT pharmaceuticals! :shock:
Lead and Melamine? Nooooo spank you, China!
84. MisterH wrote:
Lasty (and my personal favorite), I will consider it mandatory that any candidates for congress or president must have a minimum of five years experience as an adult working in the private sector.
Peter writes: If that were true, you would have just lost over 90% of the government!
(Not saying that would be a bad thing.)
My fellow conservatives,witness the sordid spectacle of “crusader” and countless other “progressives” furiously stroking their neo-communist psyches,in a delusional fit of mental masturbation.To wit; The (use your favorite epithet here) republicans have been politically annihilated in one election cycle!The proletariate will NEVER allow them to usurp the reigns of legislative power in Amerika again!Viva our deified leader Obama!Viva La Revolution!
Ann@17–Would that Obama took his oath of office as seriously as you, yours. Thank you for your dedication.
After receiving the Republican nomination, Reagan selected one of his primary opponents, George H.W. Bush, to be his running mate. His showing in the October televised debate boosted his campaign. Reagan won the election, carrying 44 states with 489 electoral votes to 49 electoral votes for Carter (representing six states and Washington, D.C.). Reagan received 50.7% of the popular vote while Carter took 41%, and Independent John B. Anderson (a liberal Republican) received 6.7%.[75] Republicans captured the Senate for the first time since 1952, and gained 34 House seats, but the Democrats retained a majority.
RE #57/Crusader: [...] ROFL, because wingnut GOPers have SO many ideas… Racists, birthers, deathers, creationist whackjobs, Christianists, greedy businessmen, on and on it goes. American HATES Republicans and it’s going DOWN!!!! [...]
Me, too, also – Crusader, do you teach rhetoric, by any chance?
Mr. Hanson: I believe you hit the nail on the head with your comment that “Voters wanted Martin Luther King, Jr.,”.
myth buster:
“Obama could promise us that we’d get the same quality health care as Congress and it wouldn’t make a difference…”
I agree. There seem to be many reasons why Americans are rejecting Obamacare. And not just rejecting it, but reacting viscerally to the idea of the government run health care.
That said, in the future any proposed government health plan that is substantially inferior to that of Congress’s will be rejected as well. The public has been primed by this episode. They’ll be ready to explode the next time the political class offers us a generic imported product that they themselves shun.
a shame this graph was inserted:
Hillary snapping and gnashing in the Congo
ONE SENTENCE she had ONE SENTENCE off message in 12 days touring a continent and that gets the lede of all the PR idiocy of this adminstration
some thing never change, Clinton Roolz
Hillary still polls 59% positive
VDH: “”By 2008, we did not wish to hear the surge finally worked and Iraq with it, that Bush gave billions to African AIDs relief, worked with allies, ran a clean government, and kept us safe from terrorist attacks for seven years.”
You had me up until that sentence. Because up until that point, I thought you were an actual conservative rather than just another Bush apologist pretending to be true conservative.
Sure, the “surge worked”, but the fact remains that the surge was a steel facade that was installed atop a mud foundation. When you invade a country based on faulty intelligence and then lose the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, it truly does not matter how many surges you send into Iraq; you’ve already lost the War. The surge has come and gone, and Iraq is still violent and unstable, and Iraqis still want America out.
What you fail to understand or accept is that many Americans did not want to invade Iraq in the first place because it did not pose a clear and present danger to the United States. Your viewpoint seems to be that because one aspect of the war – the surge – was effective, this somehow justifies the legitimacy of the entire war. It does not. The war was a bogus campaign to begin with. Putting a cherry on a turd doesn’t make it a sundae.
Is throwing trillions of dollars away on a poorly-planned war of choice a conservative value? Don’t think so.
And yes, Bush gave billions to faith-based groups to oversee African AIDS relief, but prohibited the use of those billions to be spent on contraceptives, specifically condoms, which prevents AIDS transmission better than any other means. So he basically turned Uganda into his own faith-based experiment to see if AIDS could be combated without condoms. Guess how well it worked out? Not very. AIDS is now sharply on the rise in Uganda because of condom shortages.
Is squandering billions of dollars on a program that is bound to fail a conservative value? Hardly.
Honestly, if you’re going to position yourself as a conservative, please be consistent. By defending Bush, you’re exposing yourself as just another cynical GOP dinosaur who does not live by conservative values nor expect them from his own leaders but hypocritically uses them as a cudgel against opponents.
The nation has realized that our affirmative action president,has been promoted way beyond his intelligence,competence,and political ability,by the libtard plutocrats who wanted to use him as a sock puppet.George Soros:”You’ve been taken”!
The President reveals himself as someone entirely different from the candidate for that office in 2008. “Hope and Change” proved to be an effective campaign slogan, but it was undefined by the candidate. He correctly assumed that among the voters, each would supply his/her own definitions, because of their concerns over the state of things in 2008. Alas, his opponent assured the voters; “I can work across the aisle,” but offered little more. Inspite of the weakness of the McCain campaign, the election was in the balance until late September.
Now we no longer see the candidate Obama; we see the President Obama. The latter is not the same person as the candidate. “I can’t cover another 46 million people for free,” he said in Bozeman, Montana on Friday, August 14th, 2009,admitting that his socialized medicine plan would cause a raise in taxes, undefined in amount and scope.
The President has surrounded himself with a coterie of advocates, each with an undefined agenda of his/her own. He has a compliant Congress, willing to do his bidding without so much as a glance at what he sends to them; with a Senate willing to confirm whomever he chooses for a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Has the President become a mouthpiece for whoever shouts the loudest among his appointees?
Bush gave billions to faith-based groups to oversee African AIDS relief, but prohibited the use of those billions to be spent on contraceptives, specifically condoms, which prevents AIDS transmission better than any other means
Actually condoms are unreliable to prevent preganancy let alone AIDS. Also statitics show that countries with low rates of AIDS are not those giving away condowms left and right but those who try to promote family values.
Attie, #75: I am a Repubulican but I have a different view. I think Repubicans have no one to blame but themselves. While I think the country is more fiscally conservative than Obama, I think it is also more socially liberal than the Republicans.
This has occurred to me too. I know plenty of people, including several relatives, who are quite sensible and fiscally conservative with their own lives and families, who nonetheless also consistently vote Democrat, including for Barack Obama last November.
Given the Dems’ nearly monolithic support for abortion rights, at first I suspected that had something to do with this contradiction (i.e. support for abortion rights trumps fiscal conservatism) but that doesn’t quite ring true; most Americans don’t strike me as hot-button-issue voters. On the other hand, maybe one reason the Dems are so fixated on the abortion issue is that it’s become a stand-in for the Christian right’s perceived social/cultural agenda as a whole.
Until a viable alternative to the two major parties emerges, a voter dead-set against the Christian right is every bit as reliable for the Democrats as is any recipient of Democrat largesse.
Professor Hanson,
I could not, and would not, argue with you drawing the accurate parallels between our situation and the Greek. However, I fear that your faith in the ability of the country to endure and recover may be misplaced, as our situation is different from any previously encountered here.
Previous presidents who have taken us down the path of Cleon could at least be said to have loved the country or at least not hated it, and to have had at least a minimal respect for the Constitution. That does not obtain now.
We have voted in the far Left. Their every action proclaims it. I would most respectfully ask you, if you can cite one example from classical history where a society has gone down the “Path of Cleon” and recovered absent major civil violence, if at all”.
Then we have more modern history to deal with. In modern times, when has a Leftist regime yielded power to an honest election barring the active threat of civil disorder or war? I will note that the Sandinistas in Nicaragua had the threat for insurgency to deal with.
Consider the regime’s [I use the term "regime" advisedly. Once they suspended the normal course of bankruptcy law without statutory authority to do so, backed with government threats to creditors; the concept of "regime risk" familiar to investors overseas suddenly applied domestically.] history of property expropriation, suspension of rule of law, their tolerance and encouragement of both physical intimidation of voters and citizens exercising their rights of petition and grievance against Congressmen, along with financing vote, registration, and presumably census fraud; and the actions of Democrats in Congress during the recess. These are not the actions of a party or regime that intends ever to yield power.
The refusal of Democrats to meet with aggrieved constituents at town halls, or to try to limit the meetings to forums where they control the access and questions, and the happy acceptance by Democrat members of Congress of “protection” from government directed union thugs; are not actions of politicians who believe that they have any reason to ever fear the voters again.
This does not present encouraging signs for a peaceful recovery. I will venture a prediction. IF, after the recess the Democrats force through [with possibly the help of the usual cast of renegade Republicans, although strictly speaking there are enough Democrats to do it without the Democrat-wannabees] H.R. 3200 and especially if Cap and Trade is forced through shortly thereafter; despite the opposition of the public … expect the 2010 elections to be rendered moot. It could be based on an ‘Enabling Act’ triggered by an incident, or a level of vote fraud sufficient to make Zelayo qvell with joy. But this regime will have shown that it does not fear the consequences of facing the voters no matter what they do.
For those who discount the possibility of that level of vote fraud; I offer the huge number of false registrations that have been accumulated on the books since Federal law restricted the ability to purge the rolls, repeated examples of urban vote totals surpassing the numbers of men, women, children, and household pets in the areas concerned, the activities [now funded by literally billions of Stimulus dollars] of ACORN to add even more false registrations that can be voted, the refusal of Democrat elected officials to remove or move to ‘provisional ballot status’ known false registrations, the multiple rulings by the courts that no one has standing to sue to have election laws enforced, and finally the miraculous ability in the last few election cycles for Democrats to discover boxes full of ballots in their homes and vehicles months after the election and get them counted in any close election. Add to that the forced conversion to electronic voting systems, several of which have been proven to be subject to hacking and tampering from a distance. I do not know about anyone else, but my confidence in the validity of the American vote count is far from absolute. I further suspect that I am not alone.
Finally, the concept of the Institutional Republican party coming up with a program of systematic political opposition to the Democrats is chimerical. Whiskey hit a number of points squarely, including the nature of the irreconcilable differences between the elites and the mass of the people. The Institutional Republican party has far more affinity for the Democratic regime than they have for their own base, for which they have absolute contempt. There were closer ties between the Second and Third Estates in France in 1789, than between the Institutional Republican Party and the American people. And the Second Estate and the Institutional Republican “leadership” share the same attitudes.
I am not sanguine about the prospects for the future, even if we avoid economic collapse.
Subotai Bahadur
For all of you who like me frequent the pajamasmedia website, I must also add my admonition to what George S. at #35 and #82 has said. WATCH THE VIDEO and don’t feed the trolls! You won’t change their minds. I watched the whole series and was dumbfounded at the detailed tactics the Russians used to try and subvert American politics. It’s well worth the watch.
It doesn’t pay to be smart..it pays to have a computer…
Discuss…
Whiskey et al.
Great comments. I am part of the Civil Cold War. After Obama self-destructs I think someone like Rommney, Pawlenty or even Huckabee could end-run the Bluenose GOP-ites and knock him off in 2012.
Don’t be such a downer, Subbie. There’s a war going on inside the Institutional Republican Party, as you call it. It will never be a genuinely conservative party, but then it will never be totally in the hands of country clubbers, either. The conservatives, at the moment, have the huge advantage of being able to make a clear case against an administration that by its crude assault on liberty has awakened the great apolitical mass of Americans to their own heritage. Sophisticates like yourself, no matter how sympathetic to the average American Joe, always underestimate him. He’s beginning to awaken. Watch and learn.
So what if the financiers of the US government become a barrier to the “progress” of it’s capitalist ventures (global), to the extent that the use of force is required in order to ensure those capitalist ventures( say the Chinese) that they’re loans and investments are being secured.
What is the capacity of the citizen population to defend itself against the capacity of it’s agents of law and military? (Say like a tank, against a bunch of unarmed “protesters”)
Plug Tiananmen statistics into my computer…Find analyze the “line in the sand”….Devise the most effective deterrent…Implement and proceed…
In terms of the effective deterrents available in modern society, Ancient Greece means nothing…
It pays to have a computer…
Discuss…
#5
“Elite-driven social policies like AA”
#5 up yours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ann Carroll MD/39; –you say “ask why”? Here’s why (the graph).
Also, wouldn’t it make sense that the admin’s latest absolutely critical crisis, the “lack of competition” among insurance companies, would have already been months ago under anti-trust review (law we already have in place and not experimental but literally ‘tried’)?
That is, IF the admin believed what it says, said what it believed, and was really promoting the good of the nation?
“While I think the country is more fiscally conservative than Obama, I think it is also more socially liberal than the Republicans.”
Yeah, right on. What we are going through now is *so much* better than having to go to sleep at night knowing that some kid in Oklahoma heard a prayer in school.
Maybe the Democrats are better at manipulating your emotions, and you just don’t want to be associated with the out group? Naah!
89. JQT:
I’ve been away for awhile and am still catching up on this issue. Thanks for the tip. I’ve copied the abstract to this article from Lancet (prominent British medical journal) for others to read. It speaks for itself, and Sarah Palin was dead on (no pun intended):
Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.
Dave Hansen/105; Here’s someone, JR Nyquist, who makes it a point to meet with and interview expats formerly executing on that plan. This archive of short well-organized and very pointed essays verifies its own prescience.
PS to #105, these weekly columns take about 5 minutes for a close read. An hour spent in the Autumn of 2008 will mightily strengthen your shield and sword.
Mister H, Marc Malone…the Whigs who refused to take moral stances on the great issues of the day were replaced by the Republicans. You may not care about the murder of the innocent, but the Republican Party has to if it wants any chance to win. Or it can follow the Whigs into the dustbin of history.
The Professor is correct. Most of the correct moves to be made that would benefit America are fairly obvious. Which holds out hope for another Reagan. Sure, he was a smart guy, but a lot of what he did came down to native courage.
Are you a coward, or a Conservative?
And most of those correct moves are enormously popular. There are minority interest groups who profit unduly from opposing the will of the majority, and they will have to be overridden with a metric ton of shrieking and whining involved, but the numbers are there.
The person who pointed out that we’re trying to change elites without the guillotine got it exactly right. We need to put social conservatives aka Regular Conservatives in charge to restore fiscal sanity, moral values, and national security.
And while I’m tempted to say we have to destroy the Left, I suspect if we defunded the Left that would do the job. Destroy the NEA and all the other sources of easy jobs for good pay, and you’d probably see the Left shrink dramatically. Of course, like anyone who’s getting paid to stir up stuff, and well paid, and doesn’t want to have to do hard work, they are going to scream to high heaven in full hysterical mode if we destroy the NEA and the other sources of gov’t paid activism.
But Bush did explain what we were doing in Iraq. Repeatedly. Weren’t you listening?
“Graham L.” #99,
THIS IS PRE-NOVEMBER 2008 ELECTION ASTROTURFING IF I”VE EVER SEEN IT!!!
You B!TCH at the writer AS IF you were a “conservative”, but then you use all the Leftist arguments (“everyone was against the war” blah blah blah) to “justify it.
WHAT A FRAUD YOU ARE…err…I mean, your ARGUMENTATION IS!!!
OH…DID I MENTION YOU ARE AN AXELROD/OBAMA ASTROTURFER?!
HOW MUCH ‘CHA GETTIN’ PAID, CHUMP?!?
When I say ‘Are you a coward or a conservative?’, this is a question directed at the general population of Republicans. Those who know to do the right thing, but are scared of its brute simplicity.
In order to escape the prison on the island, all you have to do is jump seventy feet into cold water and then swim to shore. Its not complicated. It just requires a lot of courage and a modicum of toughness.
However long this last, this will be known as the George Soros era of American politics. He owns the Democrat party.
#110, Bruce Despres
Whiskey is right. You’re not only wrong, but you’re also crass and rude. Also, I strongly doubt you would say something like that to his face.
Bruce Despres: just another internet “tough guy.” Yawn. Come back when you can bring something worthwhile to the argument.
I feel certain the last few weeks has shaken up the liberal establishment. They probably were patting themselves on the back assuming the indoctrination process was near complete, and a left-wing utopian world was near.
Addendum: #113 is my comment. Zeke Emanuel, Rahm’s brother who is an advisor to Obama on medical ethics, is a primary author of this article. Favorite quotes from the above abstract:
“We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people…”
“promoting and rewarding social usefulness…”
Okay. We’re done. Anyone who thinks physicians my age will practice medicine this way — in America — is nuts.
Linda Douglass’ website no longer accepts emails. Must have been flooded with Obamisms.
Such as Obama in Portsmouth:
“But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that’s $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 — immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we’re also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation, right? That will save us money.”
A truly idiotic statement for which he was duly chastised by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. To add to what they said –
1) Well-controlled diabetics often have life threatening foot problems. Absence of adequate medical care for diabetes is not common among the diabetic foot patients I see.
2) No surgeon in the history of the world has ever been paid anything close to 30K for a foot amputation (or any other operation). He’s off by 20-30 fold. The total cost to the health care system is far less than this for a typical foot amputation. The surgeon’s fee is a small part of the total cost and is never reimbursed immediately.
3) What would really save money (and what the government may be planning) is to amputate earlier for many diabetic foot problems. Far cheaper to do that than what we do now, which is to provide expensive care in the hopes of preventing amputation. Of course, amputation may be more socially useful. I wouldn’t know. We usually consider it a treatment failure.
#75 Attie
“Perhaps I should re-register as an independant.”…… I have been for a long, long time. Both parties are diseased and owned by lobbyist. We need more strong options now.
How long until you guys make this gun toting protester your next high quality PJM correspondent a la Joe the Traitor…Oh I mean Plumber? That bulbous headed idiot was your golden boy, remember? Turns out he was just a big mouth just like your Golden Girl.
“The corrective is for a conservative minority to win over a majority by appeals to reason and moderation, to stifle public appetites, to honor traditional values, to remind us all of the tragic limitations inherent in the human experience.” Well said. If the founders could fight and overturn an established monarchy and a society of greed and lawlessness, then maybe it is time that we take the same position and start our own revolution. I believe we can.
Zanne, I’m glad to see someone can think for themselves.
I hate to say, I told you so. BUT!!
Some of us are old enough to remember the Carter years, and I fear that this is already much worse, and is only going to continue to get worse as we move into the coming years, unless some one on the hill grabs them up by the short and curlies and a good hard yank, they are not going to stop it.
It will be up to us in 2012 to change the entire face of Washington. Fire every one of them and place term limits on all of them, including the Suprem Court.
Semper Fi.
80. ic:
4. whiskey: I agree with everything except the last paragraph which is pure fantasy.
When the country was underseiged: stagflation, 17% interest rate, high energy prices, rationed gasoline, over a hundred days hostages crisis, yet Reagan only managed to squeak by Carter.
~~~~
The hostage crises was over *400* days (re: *more* than a year. 100 days is barely over three months).
Carter won *six* states in 1980 for a total of 49 electoral votes. That left 44 states and 489 electoral votes for Reagan. A difference of 440 electoral votes. If you call that squeaking by, what do you consider a landslide?
OBAMA HAS VIOLATED OUR TRUST
Once lost, trust is near impossible to regain.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/president-is-not-credible-cannot-be.html
89. JQT:
It was included because it was modified to not only reimburse, but to pay the doctor to *initiate* the conversation. In other words, bounties on DNR orders for grandparents. That is where the savings were supposed to materialize.
One thing that Obama’s medical ethicist’s (Zeke Emanuel) formula for valuing life doesn’t take into account is the impact of grandparents on their grandchildren’s lives.
~~~~~
Or the number of grandparents – especially in the inner cities – *rearing* their grandchildren.
Or parents who are old enough to be grandparents – my husband was 56 when our youngest was born.
123. TLM:
Such as Obama in Portsmouth:
“But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that’s $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 — immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we’re also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation, right? That will save us money.”
A truly idiotic statement for which he was duly chastised by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
~~~~~
Only a complete fool would take any medical advice from obummer. He is also telling people colonoscopies prevent prostrate cancer.
“profit/earning ratio”
# 127 Moho which is more than can be said of YOU. We are STILL waiting for you to tell us about ALL the documents and records that the Obamanation has HIDDEN not just his REAL Birth Certificate but virtually EVERTYHING else he has done in his life is UNDOCUMENTED. So tell us MOHO do you think its smart and intelligent to vote in to the most powerful position in the World a man about which you know virtually nothing and who has been caught out in COUNTLESS lies about his past. I mean you MUST know all about his School, College, Senate and Illinois Bar history surely you dont?????? Well what a surprise and what an IDIOT that makes YOU.
I’m not sure if I should be heartened or dismayed. Yes, we have seen worse, but many deaths followed the examples that you gave.
I would like to believe that we can, as in the past, simply absorb the negatives. However, Acorn and the official targeted abuse of non-supporters makes me wonder if we aren’t in for a very bloody correction.
We seem to be in a state of denial that this wonderland we inherited could ever come to an end. But I can’t get past the fact that it seems to be the historical exception rather than the rule.
What is needed for voters in this country, and I am not joking in the least, is a choice on every ballot saying “None of the above” which if selected more than any candidate would mandate a new election and a new slate of choices. That is, the ability to go back to the drawing board as many times as possible to select and then choose the correct person for the job.
Of course, our chances of seeing something so logical and transparently beneficial to our nation is practically nil.
Good article by Thomas Sowell @ NRO this morning. The “Death Panel” fears weren’t made up out of thin air, as is now becoming abundantly clear. The Dems waited too long to amputate that portion of the bill. Now it’s news-worthy and won’t die easily. Sarah Palin has been vindicated on this issue.
What is needed for voters in this country, and I am not joking in the least, is a choice on every ballot saying “None of the above” which if selected more than any candidate would mandate a new election and a new slate of choices.
Hpw about voting in primaries instead of whining? Europeans have little (majority systems) or zero (proportional sysytems) choice but to eat the do food served by the partties. For instance in Spain Mariano Rajoy is despised by about everypone both in the left and the right but he will be elected Prime Minister because he has managed to purge any opponents in his party and because of Zapatero’s abysmla performance.
In America people have asy in the selection of candidates however they throw this precious bit of power overboard and then complain because candiudtes don’t suit them.
104. Bahador
Your points are well made. One aspect of our government that may (I hope) now be a sleeping giant has been the courts. They’ve sided with the liberals on a great many things but if they would change, on ACORN in particular, they would stop being a sleeping giant and be like their brothers in Honduras.
134. Pragmatist
I’m with you, buddy.
136. Pete wrote:
What is needed for voters in this country, and I am not joking in the least, is a choice on every ballot saying “None of the above” which if selected more than any candidate would mandate a new election and a new slate of choices. That is, the ability to go back to the drawing board as many times as possible to select and then choose the correct person for the job.
Peter writes: While I like the idea on principal, it woulld cause such upheaval in the election process that I don’t know if the reforms needed would be able to be implimented.
Take into consideration that the run-up to this past presidential election took somewhere in the range of 2 yeras of campaigning and primaries before they then had 3 to 3 months for the two selected candidates to actually run.
Now imagine November came along and ‘None of the Above’ was the big winner? You have to go through the entire nominating process and campaigning. And the new candidates will complain they don’t have long enough to ‘reach the people with their message,’ even assuming the parties were able to nominate new candidates within a month of
the initial failed election. The soonest you’re looking at a new vote would be late January, possibly even February or March. And in the meantime, you have the previous President (who may have been one of the candidated rejected by the voters or, like Bush in 2009, have people literally counting the days until they can force him out of office) remaining in office indefinitely, unable to push forth any new agendas for fear of being removed before any work can be accomplished. Overseas governments won’t know whether to negotiate with our sitting government or not. And then what happens if the seconf election in February again comes up “None of the Above’? Does it start all over again until finally we have a new President half-way through the next term?
I don’t think such a solution is workable. What needs to be done is better vetting of the candidates during the primary period. The voting public needs to learn certain key facts about each and every candidate and not sit back and assume the Dinosaur Media will do the job they’re paid for. It is up to the citizens to make sure a potential candidate is fully qualified for the post he is running for.
The second paragraph of my prior post should have read;
Take into consideration that the run-up to this past presidential election took somewhere in the range of 2 years of campaigning and primaries before they then had 3 to 4 months for the two selected candidates to actually run.
The Good Whiskey (Comment #4) and the Good Doctor have got me to thinking, if not drinking:
Our Unspoken, Cold Civil War
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
It’s a cold civil war,
The over class does wage,
Against the middle, enlisting,
The under class engaged…
Engaged in faux rights enabling,
False reparation justice,
Whatever the middle class’ll pay,
Says over class hubris.
The over class is paid well,
By government guarantee,
A guarantee so powerful that,
The middle isn’t free.
The middle class must,
Pay, pay, pay, pay, pay!
For imagined sins the,
Over-under say.
The under class gets what they need,
Someone who gives they can hate,
The over class gets what they need,
Someone who gives they can hate.
The middle class is losing this,
Unspoken cold civil war,
And will soon join the underclass with,
Nothing to live for.
The west and east coast leaders,
Of the U. S. of A.,
Would have us abandon principles,
To do what they say.
They say whatever,
Keeps them in charge,
And keeps us little,
And them growing large.
And without a shot heard,
‘Round the world,
The cold civil war is lost,
We’re over ruled.
Yes, Obama is turning out to be a completely incompetent president. But, we should not get ahead of ourselves. The collectivists are the majority and that majority is growing. They may call themselves by different names, Democrat or Republican or whatever, but they are still collectivists. As such, they will continue to support the socialist agenda in some form or other. The only question is, how quickly do we travel down this path?
102. JFM: “Actually condoms are unreliable to prevent preganancy let alone AIDS. Also statitics show that countries with low rates of AIDS are not those giving away condowms left and right but those who try to promote family values.”
Show me those statistics.
Your statement just put to rest any confusion as to why teenage pregnancy, syphilus and AIDS are sharply on the rise in the Republican southern states:
Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush’s evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US’s major public health body.
In a report that will surprise few of Bush’s critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/20/bush-teen-pregnancy-cdc-report
I don’t know what moron told you that “promoting family values” is more effective than condoms in protecting against AIDS, STDs and teen pregnancy, but clearly you were lied to. And I really don’t know why you were gullible enough to believe that without checking out the facts, but I have an idea.
This instance is precisely why educated Americans see the conservative Republican religious right as a clear danger to the well-being of this country.
You heard from someone in your church or on your talk radio station, who was clearly not a doctor, that condoms are ineffective. And you unquestioningly believed it because you’re most likely religious and so this misinformation fits into your preconceived view that contraceptives are sinful. And now you’re spreading that misinformation on to other people.
What you are doing is shameful and should be a crime. You are spreading a lie about contraceptives based on your own personal religious beliefs that have no basis in science or medicine. God forbid any poor young people get AIDS or an STD after listening to your lies.
If you do in fact believe that there is a Devil out there, know that by lying and spreading information that will cause more STDs and AIDs, you are doing the Devil’s work for him.
Think about that for a while.
“Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing heterosexual sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/condom.htm
“Condoms are the only contraceptive method proven to reduce the risk of all sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV. They can be used as a dual-purpose method, both for prevention of pregnancy and protection against STIs.”
“Estimated pregnancy rates during perfect use of condoms, that is for those who report using the method exactly as it should be used (correctly) and at every act of intercourse (consistently), is 3 percent at 12 months.”
- World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs243/en/
VDH:
As usual, I’m posting “late,” so I’m right in the middle of the dust and fury of the Bakshi contest that breaks out once the regulars show up.
Still, I want to comment on something you aren’t taking into account: Something is wrong at a systemic level (loose term) in our national politics.
The fact that so many posts on this site have referenced various underlying “influences” at the root of our national problem tells me I’m not the only one seeing something.
Under the heading:”And the Alternative Is?” you offered what looks to me a solid, common-sense list of things the country needs to do to get back on track. It’s a list one might get from a Statesman. You further suggest that the Republican Party should serve the country and itself by proposing a specific plan to realize these goals in the next few years.
Do you expect this to happen?
What we will get instead is piles of the usual “brand” horse manure intended to reap the maximum electoral harvest for Republicans, not really address and solve the nation’s problems.
Why? Because neither Party is run by Statesmen interested in serving the country or the People anymore, and worse still, the country itself is no longer run by such leaders.
What we have is a Professional Political Class dug into power like a tick. It has a separate institutional life and political interests of its own, and those are what get served.
A vigorous two-party, two-visions system is virtually dead. You have a hyper-aggresive “First Pary” in Washington holding the majority of power and influence in all three “separate” branches of govenment (and now the Fourth Estate, as well), and a thoroughly cowed and corrupted “lesser partner” timidly protecting a set of limited interests relating to business.
Both parties are run by vested members of the Professional Political Class, and both defend the overriding interests of that Class–maintaining and advancing Class power.
Everything they do is about them, not us. What we need in Washington is a one term, Tea-Party housewife setting a budget for the country; what we have is a multi-termed land swindler with a no-limit credit card.
Shared class interest is why both parties participated in the 9/11 Commission nonsense to cover the failure of the Professional Political Class to forsee and prevent a major terror incident. This self-serving bipartisan political performance occurred as some of the nearly 4000 American dead were still being separated by hand tools from the debris.
Class interests also explain why both parties are working together on so-called Immigration Reform, an attempt to reshape the Electorate into one more suitable to the future electoral prospects of the Professional Political Class.
Reshaping “The People” to their advantage is the reverse of the People’s power to un-elect them; they think it works both ways.
So, as I see it, the first problem we have in trying to get the country back on track is to see this “systemic” problem. It’s one of the main reasons we are off track in the first place.
Nothing significant or permanent will get done in Washington for the good of the country at large until we recognize the seriousness of this crisis in politics and leadership, and start to think about how to correct it.
VDH: “So I remain optimistic that the resiliance and good sense of Americans remain.”
The People, yes (as currently constituted), but would you care to place even a small bet on the statesmanship of the Republican party in the next six months?
Will you have Coke or Pepsi with your Statesmanship, Sir?
Hope and change is dead, long live nihilistic despair.
Hi Dr. Hanson, I’d lappreciate your comments on how the delta smelt and water rationing is affecting you/yours personally and your farming operations in the Valley. To me, and other folks who eat, anything that affects food production is of major concern. As is the gov’t involvement with the oh-so-fundamental to our continued well being farming industry. Land is sacred and producing food is the highest and best use of ground. (Those delicious black plums are selling for $.97 here in Houston. Delisch!) Also, what say you concerning the fires in Greece since you were just there? Your personal take on current events and stories are particularly revealing. Thanks again for your insights, Lee Kleypas, Houston.
HEALTH and LIVES ENDANGERED by the Unethical
British Newspaper – http://WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America By Jo Macfarlane
15th August 2009
A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.
The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.
It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.
GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.
The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.
It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:
* More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
* 500 cases of GBS were detected.
One senior neurologist said last night: ‘I would not have the swine
flu jab because of the GBS risk.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html
#116 Tennwriter – I am a Christian Conservative, with all that that entails. I do know, however, that the key is fiscal discipline. I also know that most Conservative Dems are also socially conservative. They just go off-script in things like heping the poor and environmentalism and such. Fiscal discipline as a mantra will restrain the worst of the Leftist political ideology more than anything else. Cut off the money, and the Leftist Beast dies.
#118 Ed Wallis – Actually, he sounds like a Ron Paul kind of guy. Dr. Paul thinks he’s a Conservative. He spewed all this same stuff during the 2008 campaign, and he had his devotees. A lot of confused people because of him. The only time Dr. Paul made sense was when speaking of monetary policy.
MILITARY ENFORCED VACCINATIONS
http://WWW.WORLDNETDAILY.COM
Forced vaccines: Ready for yours?
Janet Porter
August 18, 2009
The CDC reported that the United States has the “largest number” of H1N1 cases, noting, “however, most people who have become ill have recovered without requiring medical
treatment.”
In Monday’s Financial Times, Dr Richard Halvorsen, author of “The Truth About Vaccines,” said: “… in most cases this is a mild virus which needs a few days in bed. I’d question why we need a vaccine at all.”
Austrian investigative reporter Jane Burgermeister, on Wednesday’s Faith2Action radio program, said France is already responding to the Pandemic “Level 6″ complete with military-enforced mandatory vaccinations. She added, “They are going to be mandatory throughout Europe.” But that’s not all.
Burgermeister reported:
According to the International Health Regulations of 2005, which has been incorporated into legislation also in The International Partnership on Avian Influenza of 2005 of the USA … the WHO and the U.N. become the controlling agencies of the U.S. in the event of a declared Level 6 Pandemic, and are entitled to control of this country under martial law … under the pretext of fighting a pandemic emergency.
Refusing a WHO-mandated vaccination has been criminalized; police can therefore use deadly force against “criminal suspects” refusing these vaccines.
Perhaps this is a reason why the Pentagon is preparing to “make troops available,” as Fox News reported, to work with FEMA. Fisher said Congress passed post 9/11 regulations, over the objections of the governors, granting the federal government the authority deploy the National Guard.
Last week, I reported about the ads the Army and National Guard are posting for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” for “confinement,” “control,” “custody,” “supervision” and “counseling individual prisoners in rehabilitative programs.”
Just who are these high school graduates (they seek to hire) going to supervise and control in resettlement and internment camps?
Check out this YouTube video from a guy who spotted a “Mass Evacuation Bus.”
Who gets put on one of these huge government buses without windows?
Maybe it’s those who refuse to take the potentially paralyzing swine flu vaccination.
Check out the “sessions” at an “International Swine Flu Conference
” that is being held at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill Aug. 19-20.
You’d expect a conference like that to have some sessions like “Frequent Hand Washing,” but according to Burgermeister, they’ll be discussing such things as:
* “Unwillingness to follow government orders”
* “Control and diffuse social unrest and public disorder”
* “Protect police forces from falling ill and from being hurt in civil disturbances” and
* “Manage a surge in crime and meet routine requests at the same time.”
The promotional brochure also lists, “Mass fatality management planning.” (And that’s probably just from the vaccinations.) Somebody needs to go to that meeting tomorrow to see what else they’re saying.
Before they line up your children to give them a swine flu vaccination in school without telling you, find out more, and speak out. Your life and your freedom may depend on it.
Then, attend our web conference tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern – sign up at http://www.f2a.org.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107228
The flu shots contain health destroying toxic ingredients which is why the military will be used to force people to take the deadly flu shots. And the flu drug companies CANNOT BE SUED BY VICTIMS FOR DISABILITY AND/OR DEATH AS A RESULT OF THE HORRIFYING FLU SHOTS.
Dr. Mercola: Do Drug Companies Secretly Favor a World Flu Pandemic?
http://WWW.MERCOLA.COM
And not only are vaccines ineffective in preventing flu in your children, they are equally useless for adults, including the elderly.
Most flu vaccines contain dangerous levels of mercury in the form of thimerosal, a deadly preservative that is 50 times more toxic than regular mercury.[10] If taken in high enough doses, it can result in long-term immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions.
Disorders associated with mercury poisoning include autism, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, and speech and language deficiencies.
The Institute of Medicine has warned that infants, children, and pregnant women should not be injected with thimerosal, and yet the majority of flu shots contain 25 micrograms of it.
It has been calculated that, by age two, American children have received 237 micrograms of mercury from vaccines alone, which far exceeds the current EPA “safe” level of 0.1 mcg/kg per day.
But that’s not all. Other toxic substances found in various flu vaccines include:
Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
Neomycin and streptomycin (antibiotics)
Resin and gelatin – known to cause allergic reactions
Formaldehyde – a known cancer causing agent
Aluminum — a neurotoxin linked to Alzheimer’s disease
Polysorbate 80 (Tween80™) – which can cause severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis
Phenol (carbolic acid)
Triton X100 (detergent)
Egg proteins (including avian viruses)
Novartis, another Big Pharma player, also announced on June 12 that it, too, has produced a swine flu vaccine using cell-based technology and the adjuvant MF59?.
The MF59? adjuvant is oil based and contains Tween80, Span85, and squalene. In studies of oil-based adjuvants in rats[13] , the animals were rendered crippled and paralyzed.
Squalene brought on severe arthritis symptoms in rats, and studies in humans given from 10 to 20 ppb (parts per billion) of squalene showed severe immune system impact and development of autoimmune disorders.[14]
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/What-are-the-Dangers-of-Mandatory-Swine-Flu-Vaccination.aspx
The flu shots are clearly INTENDED to permanently and severely damage our health and cause countless deaths.
Now, I’ve got it!
Listening to Barack Obama is like listening to Brett Favre. Neither one can be taken too seriously!
Ed:
Fine; but am I wrong? That’s what matters.
“Trust but verify,” Reagan said repeatedly of the Russians. That’s where I am with the Republican Party. Let them surprise me.
Perhaps you’d like to put up the money for VDH’s bet?
146. dck:
As someone routinely says: this is the best blog. In part that’s because of an undercurrent here of dissatisfaction with all of our elected officials. Despite what the trolls may think, this is not a Right-Wing Republican site. (We may excuse their simplistic view of the discussions here because, well… because they are, y’know, un-nuanced simple-minded trolls).
As you rightly point out, the Political Class is failing us. This has been the case now for at least two decades. It’s more apparent when times are hard, as they are now. But it’s been there all along, growing worse year after year, with a majority of incompetents from both Parties becoming progressively more entrenched.
IMO, this is a big part of what is behind the current wave of protests. The proximate cause for dissent is Obama’s policies. The over-arching concern, however, is that we are becoming a people of, by and for the Government. And our Government now routinely fails us.
Obie’s moving fast, and some say unless something big, like a terrorist attack, happens, he’ll roll all over us. Could be, and if so, we don’t need to pray for a disaster to save us. Besides, these guys know how not to let a disaster go to waste, either.
What to do? Holler. Holler loud and long, demanding to see every last piece of paper he’s hiding and doesn’t want us to see. Open ‘em up, and once it’s done, that’ll stop him dead in his tracks. Everybody’ll wise up real fast to the walking big lie he is.
<>
May I suggest a name for the above? Reagan and Gingrich showed us what we need to do. We learned through Reagan’s Morning in America. We learned through Newt’s Contract with America. We learned, now we just need to do it. The name: America Returns.
Why does the GOP have to present an alternative to Obama-ism? The liberal regime elites have been running American institutions for decades without any input from the Republicans, which has become the party of people not in power and with no influence. Why not call for the Democrats to use their majority status to take reasonable steps? Why do the Dems get a pass, as if no one would expect them to be other than what they are?
The result is that Obama is increasingly at the mercy of events, rather than directing them himself.
=============
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
#155 TLM
You are only the second person I’ve run into in the “blogosphere” who understands this and sees its proper place at the center of the grassroots political debate going on in the country right now.
In March, I heard Tea Party protesters boo at the mention of any politician, so I hope you’re right that an end to patience is at hand with the whole Political Aristocracy, and its noble steed, the image-packaging-and-sales industry.
Pardon me if I vent some more. I won’t repeat myself.
The Framers intended that a Citizen Legislator would serve and go home.
“Professionalism” drew the type of people our forefathers warned us about: those attracted to power for its own sake; those who think it their special right, duty, or destiny to rule over others (not “to govern” and never “to serve”). Obama is a fine example of this.
We simply can’t afford this anymore with national solvency and our most fundamental Freedoms now constantly put at risk.
Everyone prays for the Republic, evoking the electoral wooden stake to rid us of the curse of Count Obama in the Magic Year 2012, but a mausoleum full of replacements is just waiting for the right dark of the Moon. The Republican Church offers little protection.
Can the greatest country in history do no better than this: offer no better choices, no better service, and no better Statesmanship than this, as we slowly bleed out as a Nation?
Something is wrong here at a level far deeper than one or two election cycles.
Call me a troll but I haven’t read anything from the Hanson Choir that clarifies what they will do for the 46 million uninsured we pay for one way or another. What will you do about the people who can’t get medical care or drugs for themselves or their children? And what about the illegal farm worker who shows up at the hospital after he wrapped his car around a telephone pole? Who needs death panels when you have insurance companies running interference and security guards barring the doors?
“Wall Street greed continues, but the remedy for its excess instead falls on our family doctor, real estate broker, and accountant, and all the others who are demonized for making over $250,000 a year.”
The family practice Dr ought to be exempt from taxes. Otherwise didn’t these wealthy folk do even better after the Bush post 9-11 tax cuts? The children of the poor and middle class do the fighting overseas while wealthy get tax cuts? I don’t think Obama is demonizing anyone, he is asking them to pay their fair share. He ought start a military draft and require every one of their sons and daughters to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then they might make the connection between oil, the gas pump, the Hummer and the well being of their country.
The Pubs, or rather the Conservatives, offer a different message all the time. We say that it is not the government’s job to fix society. We don’t expect a perfect society, just a free one. We need not offer an alternative other than, “Get the government out of it, and most problems will disappear.”
145. Graham L., Aug 18, 2009 – 11:45 am
You could read about Uganda’s success in reducing its AIDS epidemic and how it was actively undermined by condom-pushing NGOs and the US government. In fact, the US often makes humanitarian aid to African and Central and South American countries contingent on these nations adopting Western notions of sexual liberation, contraceptive use, and abortion. It’s a form of cultural imperialism, didn’t you know?
This article was written in Feb 2005: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48464-2005Feb23.html
But this one was written in July of 2008: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08071112.html
And this brief reflective piece was written sometime between 2002 and 2007 (I cannot find a specific date on the site): http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/fall2003/studentlife/farrell.htm
It seems apparent that people who oppose “moralistic” and “unscientific” approaches to problems look with contempt on anything involving abstinence or monogamy. “How absurd! How unreasonable!” As though people had no more self-control than goats. Or even that they *shouldn’t* exercise more self-control than goats, because that’s a restriction on their liberty! People have *urges*, you know! Yet while condoms are more effective than nothing at preventing the spread of STDs and HIV/AIDS, not having sex at all is a sure-fire way to not get AIDS from sex. Similarly, if two people have been celibate prior to marriage and then are completely faithful to each other afterwards, there is no possible way for either to contact HIV/AIDS from sexual contact, unless one of them is raped, in which case a condom is unlikely to be used anyway.
Yes, I acknowledge that not everyone chooses to exercise self-control. People unwilling to exercise self-control should use condoms to avoid contacting or spreading these deadly diseases. But that doesn’t mean urging people to abstain from sex and to be monogamous in marriage is bad advice or impractical. Indeed, it is the best advice out there for healthy psychological development, mental and emotional well-being, and overall physical health. Condoms are the last resort, as the Ugandan government acknowledges.
161. bill wrote:
Call me a troll but I haven’t read anything from the Hanson Choir that clarifies what they will do for the 46 million uninsured we pay for one way or another.
Peter writes: Bill, can I ask you to please stop with the long debunked liberal talking points. It has already been proven, long ago, that the so-called 46 million (or 47 million, or 50 million, or whatever number The Won decides to use in a speech this week) is fake, false, untrue.
A third of that number are illegal immigrants. Say the word with me now… ILLEGAL. Not my problem until they chose to obey the laws.
Another third are successful, generally well off young people who, for whatever reason, have decided they have better things to spend their money on than health insurance because, after all, they are young and probably not sick and/or can afford to pay out of pocket is something comes up. Last i checked, this is STILL a free country and, at least until HR3200 passess, they are not FORCED to buy insurance. Again, they’re not my problem.
The final third are mainly made up of the poor and elderly who would otherwise qualify for government coverage already, but for some reason, either through ignorance or misinformation, are unaware that all they need to do is apply for it. These people could use counselors (either professional or through their clergy or elsewhere) who can help them fill out the forms they need and make sure they are properly submitted. But I don’t need my perfectly acceptable health insurance to be ruined because these people need help filling out paperwork.
While certain issues of health care insurance do need improvement, you don’t tear apart an entire car just to change a flat tire, to use an analogy. Fix what needs to be fixed, but don’t eradicate health coverage as it currently stands, coverage 85% of the population likes, just for the few that have not been able to get it for themselves.
161. bill
Take illegals. They had bad medical care in central and south America. The crossed the border illegally, now work for cash, largely send cash away from the American economy and you and others believe that I have a duty to take care of them. It’s as if I’m a bad person if I don’t work, pay, and sacrifice so they can have everything I’ve ever had.
April 15 is a big day for me. Is it for you? We know it’s not for them.
We have an all volunteer army. The less affluent members weren’t forced to do anything. Anybody can join. Maybe you? I’m too old.
By the way, a special note of appreciation to the PJ person who is reading this post and saving us from the tedium of reading posts that are meant to disturb, insult, and generally obstruct the effort to express ideas in a civil way. OOOXXX