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Saturday, March 24. 2012A few Saturday morning linksImage stolen from Theo Where's the color? Did you know that there is now a Real Clear Religion? Whit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress" Analysis: Why U.S. high court may uphold healthcare law I predict that they will The case for why they will: Individual mandate is constitutional - Supreme Court should find that key aspect of Obama's signature law is a legitimate exercise of Commerce Clause power Krauthammer: Obamacare: The Reckoning/ The stakes could not be higher. Star Parker: Obamacare undermines America’s founding principles Yep. Federal gummint has done lots of things like that over the past 100 years Obamacare Foes Pick Experienced Lawyer For Their Case Los Angeles Moves to Restrict Radio Speech Medieval Warm Period In the News Again Monckton’s Presentation to the California Assembly Democrats in the Legislature Chicken Out of Climate Debate With Lord Monckton Zimbabwe 'sperm hunters' picking up male travellers - Gangs of women in Zimbabwe have been picking up male travellers to have sexual intercourse and harvest their sperm, according to reports. Babes are constantly trying to do that to me. That's why it's important to be armed - to keep the female sexual predators at bay. Liar in the White House: When You Have to Say "Per Se," It Means You're Lying. From a commenter there:
Goldberg: The Federalist Solution - Making political decisions at the lowest democratic level is the best Left-Right compromise. I completely agree. People can pee in their own lemonade if they want, just not in mine. The Geography of Government Benefits - The share of Americans’ income that comes from government benefit programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, more than doubled over the last four decades, rising from 8 percent in 1969 to 18 percent in 2009. Comments
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Obamacare may very well pass Supreme Court review. The Court has a very long tradition of enhancing the power of the Federal government. If the Court does approve it, there will be much gnashing of teeth and wailing, but the People will be secretly pleased.
Limbaugh likes to cite the many, repeated Gallup polls that show that Americans are self-declared to be 40% conservative, 40% moderate and 20% liberal. But by party affiliation they are nearly equal Democrat v Republican, with a substantial percentage of independent. I don't see any contradiction here. People are only dimly aware of what the parties supposedly stand for. Do they stand for anything? The political story line is frozen in the 1930s. The 60s never happened. The reality is that a majority of Americans want socialism. They want Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, unemployment benefits, minimum wages and maximum hours, and regulations on the environment, work, housing, food and drugs, zoning, etc etc etc. All that is modern, parliamentary socialism. The old socialism of worker dictatorship and state ownership of the means of production died in WWI when the workers supported the war instead of revolting. But Americans have been conditioned to hate the word socialism. Also, Americans, like people everywhere, don't want to pay for it. They keep trying pass the costs on to someone else. There is no one else. The American middle class and working class will have to pay a lot more in taxes to get what they want. A very lot more. Probably at least double. If taxes aren't raised dramatically, benefits will have to be cut. That will not happen until economic collapse occurs. Greece is everyone's future. Most of the welfare state benefits go to the elderly. If you cut benefits, you will reduce your own grandparents to poverty and you will deny them medical care. In other words, welcome to 1910. Great comment. The only cure for what ails us is the cure for what ails us. The politics we want don't work because politics that work are what we don't want.
Small quib, the original model that died when European workers remained nationalist during WWI (except in Russia, in a bent-by-Prussian anomaly), never died in the USA --rather, with the Grainge, the Wobblies, the arts, it flourished, reaching its sacrificial apotheosis in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fighting in the Spanish Civil War --which few realize, lasted right into 1939, the year WWII began. Socialism was supplanted by Progressivism. Elements of that ideology, holding that a cadre of experts are the proper way to manage anything and everything, pervade both nominal political parties.
The old Marxian arguments about which class will own what are rendered moot, as ownership is removed from control. The illusion of democracy, that voting matters, enables the Ruling Class to maintain power by changing jerseys between “R” and “D” as populist whims require. Local control is a basic plank of the Green Party. It is one of the ways a Constitutionalist like me can attempt to appeal to those most of use dismiss as hopelessly pinko. Obama’s embracing and extension of Bush’s policies has created a grand opportunity to reshape the American ideological landscape. Unfortunately, too many are happy to keep using the old rhetoric of false division. Unfortunately, too many are happy to keep using the old rhetoric of false division
-- ipso facto, tautological at first glance --but then, reveals a truth --that when there is no real division, a rhetoric of false division can create the real thing soon enough. Real Clear Religion has been around for at least a year, it's been a nice addition to the Real Clear sites. It's not too esoteric, nor too populist. I like all the Real Clear sites, they strike a nice balance for the casually informed reader.
If Obama care is allowed to stand then you or your parents will see the day when you are denyed life saving health care because you are old and it is too expensive while at the same time illegal aliens will get free health care regardless of cost. That is in the bill and there are death panels in spite of all the claims that there are not. Old people will be denyed care we commonly provide today as a cost saving technique. Ironically health care costs will skyrocket under Obamacare while at the same time they will be cutting the availability and quality of healthcare.
Unintelligible McDonalds sign
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/3523749002/ Someone said recently that the commerce clause will be unable to overcome the fact that fully half of all Americans never use the medical system *at all*.
The day may come when I use only the Costa Rican one, or the black market.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=subsidiarity&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox
re the Goldberg link. Nice list of articles -- I have a hard time with the idea that the SC will uphold the healthcare law. Very hard.
There's not a single bit of support for the mandate. The closest you can come is the requirement to purchase insurance if you own a car. There are, however, 2 issues with this. The first is that that is at a state level. The second is that it requires you purchase a car first, but you can avoid paying it by simply not buying a car. How can simply being born require you to purchase something? Doesn't individual liberty assume that if you choose not to have insurance, you should have the right to not want to purchase it? The conundrum the Court faces is how it can square the circle of liberty with the economic need to cover potential health costs individuals face. But this is like any other thing we have in life - should the Court force us to buy food, because we require it to live? If so, how much food, and at what time or at what rate of consumption? If the Supreme Court approves the Constitutionality of this, it will prove that they have completely undermined the Constitution. Making political decisions at the lowest democratic level is the best Left-Right compromise.
The left does not wish to compromise on the concept that they are smart people and therefore on that basis alone they should rule and determine what's best for the rest of us. Because the rest of us just aren't smart enough to understand what's best for ourselves. And they have plenty of evidence of that; we do not, after all, always choose what they would choose for us. And since the Federal government is the only part of the government that can impose single ideas on the entire country at once, power must be concentrated in the Federal government as much as possible. |
Tracked: Mar 24, 10:38