Wednesday, August 26. 2009
Via Powerline:
A few weeks ago, Eric Holder saw nothing wrong with Black Panthers using billy clubs to intimidate voters. Today, he thinks intimidating terrorists with cigars is a crime. Holder is the one who should be answering tough questions under oath.
Via No Left Turns:
Private insurance works well where it’s least regulated. To find the unaffordable disasters, you must head to states such as New York or New Jersey that have pioneered the reforms Obama is peddling for the entire country. . . .
A 55-year-old man in Allentown, Pa., can choose from 99 plans starting as low as $141 a month for hospital coverage. A zero-deductible HMO plan costs $418 a month. Or he can pick a more flexible PPO, with a higher deductible and pay less monthly out-of-pocket for the premium.
Enough already. I do not need to add to it nor can I, as I can do neither saccharine nor sentimental very well. I have yet to hear the word "controversial" or "extreme Left-wing" or "limousine Liberal." If the guy was such a saintly historic figure, how come nobody told me before today? (It does sound as if he was kind to people in person, but I never thought much of his personal or political integrity, even if he had good manners.)
Not to be mean-spirited or anything - just being normal Yankee-grumpy. Now I see the Left is already politicizing his death. Never waste a crisis death. And now here it comes, just as Rush predicted a year ago (and was given hell for saying).
Addendum, from Mr. Tiger:
...Ted Kennedy did more to push American government and civil society toward a European social welfare model than any politician of the post-war era, with the possible exception of LBJ. By my reckoning, he left the country worse off than he found it, and to the moment of his death supported legislation that, if enacted, will make it a lot harder for the generation of my children to succeed, thrive, and reach for their own stars. So I will end on perhaps a churlish note: I wish Ted Kennedy had not led the life he did.
Addendum: Scott at Powerline thinks that Kennedy's "borking" of Bork was his most shameful action. After Mary Jo, I assume.
Mary Jo, and the chicks in the Georgetown pubs that he and Chris Dodd reportedly entertained constantly, were probably the only regular people he ever knew. But "he cared" - always with other peoples' money, of course.
But I am voluntarily off duty for news, so I will shut up.
It all suddenly becomes clear to Randall Hoven. He has this graph:
I guess we're all not gonna drown this week. His post is rational, and deserves to be widely spread around.
I have no doubt that all of the global warming climate change etc. nonsense is about politics and power. And I do not give a darn what the weather does: whatever it does is fine with me as long as I am healthy and free, and my kids are ok.
Tuesday, August 25. 2009
 The new taxes the Dems are contemplating
Blue Crab: "This is fairly shocking. The New York Times discovers that a lot of people who oppose ObamaCare are not raving lunatics - something the Times has not exactly been reporting before now." Related: Those darn violent right wing nuts.
Related: I thought it odd that we have heard very few ordinary people supporting government medicine. Of course not, since polls say 80% of people are happy with their medical care. Gateway found out who does support government medical care. Not exactly ordinary people.
Via RCP, from a Dem in Forbes:
Step back for a second, listen to what the non-screaming skeptics are saying, and it's clear the party severely overestimated its mandate and underestimated the public's growing unease with the government's massive growth over the last year. What would have been a hard sell in any environment has turned into an epic challenge. Yet the Democrats have been charging ahead as if it's still November 2008, oblivious to the dramatic change in the electorate's mood.
At Pajamas:
Now, as Matt Welch of Reason magazine points out, fear of big government is all the rage — and is cause for rage. He writes:
This isn’t about liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. A majority oppose Obama’s policies because they fly in the face of this country’s bedrock values of personal liberty and limited government. Robbing Peter to pay Goldman Sachs does violence to that fundamentally American ethos.
And increasingly, Obama administration policy does violence to European values, as well. The continent has for the last two decades been systematically disengaging national governments from domestic industries. Top officials from Sweden, of all places, complained about Washington’s auto bailout, tersely announcing that “the Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories.”
And while conservatives find it hard to believe that voters didn’t see this coming from the most liberal man in the U.S. Senate, Welch correctly concludes, “Americans didn’t vote for big government last November. They voted for a guy who looked like he could keep his cool in the heat of battle. If Obama wants to regain that cool, he needs to rein in the power-grabbers in Washington.”
But that goes for Republicans as well.
1799, via Volokh (h/t, Insty):
Let me place myself in the President’s chair, at the head of a party in this country, aiming to extend the influence of the governing powers at the expence of the governed; to increase the authority and prerogative of the Executive, and to reduce by degrees to a mere name, the influences of the people. How should I set about it? What system should I pursue?
1st. As the rights reserved by the State Governments and the bounds and limits set by the Constitution of the Union, are the declared barriers against the encroachments of entrusted power, my first business would be to undermine that Constitution, and render it useless, by claiming authority which, though not given by the express words of it, might be edged in under the cover of general expressions or implied powers — by stretching the meaning of the words used to their utmost latitude, — by taking advantage of every ambiguity — and by quibbling upon distinctions to explain away the plain and obvious meaning. It would be my business to extend the powers of the Federal Courts and of Federal Officers — to encroach upon the State jurisdictions — to throw obloquy on the State Governments as clogs upon the wheel of the General Government — for that purpose to promote a spirit of party among them, and subject to accusations of disaffection those who were opposed to the measures I would pursue. In addition to this I would now and then exercise trifling acts of authority not granted by the Constitution, under some undefined notion of prerogative. If by such means one encroachment should be made good, it would be a precedent for another, until the public by degrees would become accustomed and callous to them.
"Us right-wing nuts sure is scary!" Our hero PJ, Still 'Crazy' - And Proud of It. Conservatives induce a case of the vapors at the Washington Post.
They do not know how to write an English sentence. Stanley Fish on What Should Colleges Teach? I thought that writing, logically developed argument, and coherent essay writing was a job for high school, not college. h/t, Althouse
Via Bernard Goldberg:
Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots. For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.” Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.
I am a Neanderthal. OK. That's what I always thought anyway. I eat red meat too. Yummy.
Can medical care be a Constitutional entitlement?
Castro comes out in defence of Obama. That will help a lot. An endorsement only Hollywood could appreciate.
Were the bailouts a good idea? Marginal Rev
Will Scotland learn from this?
Our friend Jonah's final post on his Liberal Fascism blog.
The Admin joins the defence team for terrorists. Brilliant move. I am sure that will make them love us. Here comes the Grand Inquisitor from Connecticut.
More stimulating stimulus dollars. Why not just give Vouchers for Hookers? Like Cash for Clunkers?
No Pasaran:
Carle Zimmerman emphasized an inverse relationship between the strength of the family and the strength of the state. In other words, he argued that as the state increases in power, the family weakens; and as the state loses power — when the state becomes weak, for whatever reason — the family becomes stronger…
Russia's ongoing romance with Stalin. They like strong (paranoid) men.
Our corner of Maine, where we try to spend much of August boating, blueberrying, catching up on reading, playing tennis and golf and socializing over cocktails has broadband now, astonishingly. Re cars: Right now, I drive an oldish Lexus sedan, hubbie drives a fairly new F-250. Spare car? A 2002 Suburban for when needed, which we are considering replacing with a Toyota minivan. I'll begin with this minor rant -
 I hear that Cash for Clunkers - a wonderful subsidy for the Japanese auto makers - has had to extend their time frame for reimbursement from the government. Today is the latest deadline, but who knows?
The car dealers need the money to pay their bills.
It's the amount of paperwork, plus government computers crashing and making terrible errors. And most car dealers do not have, and cannot afford, the staff to get the government forms entered properly. Why would they? They are in the private sector...
That's why I refuse to get involved in government medicine. I don't have the time, and I cannot afford the staff to do their paperwork. And these bozos think they can run American medical care? They do not have a clue.
Errors on government paperwork are potential felonies. Who needs the hassle? Not me. I just want to be a simple doctor, and I would rather be paid with a bushel of potatoes from your garden than with a puny and way-overdue government check.
 The 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope (photo from the article). Related: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
Training drone pilots (with attack video) h/t, Neptunus
Photographers' Rights. h/t, Insty
Rick Moran: Why You couldn't pay me to be a doctor
Unbelieveable. IQ too high for the police department. Must be stupid bosses. You cannot be too smart to be a good cop.
The GOP's Hispanic problem
Big surprise:
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, had shown “no sensitivity” to the families of those who died, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, told the Scottish Parliament....
Hmmm. I see no Christian repentence there.
Sowell: A new push to play God from Washington
Saints are no more common in the insurance industry than in politics or even among paragons of virtue like economists. So there will always be horror stories, even if these are less numerous or less horrible than what is likely to happen if Obamacare gets passed into law.
Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep insurance companies honest"-- and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Certainly most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony.
More Sowell: Utopia vs. Freedom
The nightmare of rationing in Oregon. Pajamas
Via NRO:
American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.
The only President America treated with anything like a cult of personality was George Washington (and maybe FDR, sad to say). Washington rejected it, and rightly, graciously, and honorably refused to run for re-election. Americans do not "anoint" - we hire and fire. We should probably fire more often, and more pols should make themselves temporary public servants rather than careerists. Government is not a religion - and politics should not be a road to an easy life and a generous pension for lazy or incompetent narcissists, schmoozers, and con artists.
Monday, August 24. 2009
 The "health care" war - and it is a war - attests to the extent to which Americans are divided on the proper role of government in their lives, not to mention in the most personal and sensitive areas of their lives.
For example, Coyote in a piece titled US Medicine - The best in the world, he said this:
I had a professor that used to poll his class — he would ask them if they would prefer a society where the gap between rich and poor was narrower but where the poor were, on an absolute basis, worse off than in the less equal society. He reported the vote almost always split about 50/50. (of course the is a purely utilitarian formulation of the question. Adding in individual liberties issues makes the question far more stark, as to achieve an egalitarian society one must give up both wealth and liberty.)
As a more-or-less Conservative person who was raised in the heart of the American Revolution, my instincts are to distrust centralized power (power is a zero-sum game, unlike money and wealth) and the wisdom and trustworthiness of politicians - and to trust the people to figure out their own lives as best they can (while providing the abundant safety nets we have now for those who stumble and fall).
I know that Lyndon Johnson's Medicaid and Medicare (for the poor, the chronically disabled and the old - imagine considering 65 to be old!), were viewed as first steps towards universal government medical care. Those measure took care of those people that everybody felt badly about.
The Left, which pretends to see "market failures" everywhere as an excuse to place as much as possible under the control of the State (see Dr. Clouthier: Simply put, the government needs to relearn its place, who notes the Left's tendency to promise the sun, moon and stars for free, for all.)
Does Government Know Best? I doubt it very much. There are few people in government, I believe, who are as educated, honest, informed, or thoughtful as I am (and that's not saying much). Regan at American Thinker asks Does Government Know Best?. One quote:
Frighteningly, team Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress -- who have taken on the role of the prudent parents of juvenile Americans -- have proven to be more than occasionally wrong for the country. In their desire to completely control American lives, they have progressed from losing their tempers to losing their way. Americans are now living in a nanny state in which the Democrats in power are implementing policy after policy designed to reduce freedom of choice and increase government control. Big government, socialized institutions, and sharing the wealth are policies supported by the Democrats - the party whose membership includes academics, Hollywood pseudo-intellectuals, and community organizers. The members of the Democratic Party are those who believe that they are smarter and wiser than the average American and that government intervention in all aspects of our lives is necessary in order to prevent social and economic catastrophe.
William Anderson at Weekly Standard says what I wish to say much better than I can in his Who Owns Your Body? One quote (my bold):
We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.
All right, let's do that. Let's look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?
When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.
America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.
Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe's nobility. Our soi-disant elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen's continuing preference for self-rule.
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.
Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. It necessarily follows that government must have the power to approve or withhold care. This concept collides destructively with the founding principles of individual responsibility and autonomy upon which popular sovereignty depends.
This is the reason that the debate never ends. It is also the reason that any resolution of the question will necessarily either confirm or deny the original intent of the Founders.
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I have occasionally posted here about the sad, if not pathetic, willingness of some to sell their American birthright of individual sovereignty and freedom for a bowl of lentils. This is especially sad for a shrink because part of our job is to help people emotionally mature. It is no help to a shrink's job for government to be an enabler of perpetual childhood and dependency. Read Anderson's whole good essay (link above).
 Rules for Radicals turns to the right. Tiger. We have discussed Alinsky and Gramsci many times here. Along with 1984, Brave New World, Das Kapital, and Animal Farm, they seem to be the handbooks of the Left.
Oh, brother is right. The racist national parks. Related, from the hideously white Mr. Free Market
The Death Book for Veterans. Nice. Didn't we already ask them to die for their country once? Related: Obama to elderly: Drop Dead
A CT Rep who doesn't want to face the voters. Phone it in.
From Rev. Sirico:
Faith communities should recognize the Religious Left’s ‘40 Days’ campaign for what it is: a politically driven effort to expand a bloated state and make Americans evermore dependent on politicians and bureaucrats for healthcare.
Cash for clunkers was great for the Japanese car companies. I thought it was supposed to help American car companies.
Sen. Joe Lieberman must be listening to people. Slow it down.
Is a Federal insurance mandate Constitutional? No. Not under the Commerce clause, anyway. The Constitution gives no such power to the government. h/t, Viking
Important essay via Betsy: Do we expect too much from medical insurance? I believe so. At some point, some people seemed to expect "insurance" to pay all of their bills for them instead of simply insuring them against especially high or costly expenses. If a $60 pediatrician visit is too much for somebody, then they cannot afford to have kids yet.
Related: It's the big government, stupid. A quote from the NY Post piece:
While the commentariat's condescension is almost comical, the whole evil-or-stupid explanation misses the elephant in Obama's room: Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren't very keen about the government barging into their lives.
Related by Lewis at Am Thinker:
Obama is trying to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their own tax money and corralling everyone with an endless sea of laws and regulations, until they know they can never fight City Hall. The crux of ObamaCare is centralizing power; everybody is made helpless except the politically connected.
Noubini: A double-dip vs a U-shaped recession?
Steyn via Dino:
Mark Steyn has further comments on Obamacare:
Why be scared of a government health program? After all, says the president, “Medicare is a government program that works really well,” and if “we’re able to get something right like Medicare,” we should have more “confidence” about being able to do it for everyone.
On the other hand, says the president, Medicare is “unsustainable” and “running out of money.” By the way, unlike your run-of-the-mill politician’s contradictory statements, these weren’t made a year or even a week apart, but during the same presidential speech in Portsmouth, N.H.
Whatever. This would be amusing in a not-so-dangerous world. This incoherence does seem to track with Obama’s 41% strong disapproval rating. Heaven help us all!
Steyn neglects to mention that, last I heard, the Dem plan is to fold Medicare and Medicaid into the government-controlled single-payer program. Let's face it: their ultimate goal is to put us all in government-run and controlled post-office-style clinics like the Indian Health Service. Clinics in schools too, because modern parents cannot be entrusted to take care of their own kids, can they?
The "Oh sh-t" photo from Theo. A timely metaphor.
Sunday, August 23. 2009
This came in over the transom:
Let me get this straight...
We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it (and who smokes) with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.
What possibly could go wrong?
 I am home for a moment to do some wash, re-pack my gear, and to get some fresh cash. Then up to Maine by boat with excellent new girlfriend.
While our news linking team is on vacation until after Labor Day, I recommend these large volume news link sites (which have always tended to have plenty of overlap with our posts anyway):
Doug Ross Journal
Conservative Grapevine
Newsmax
and, of course, RCP.
Dig ya later...
From a Town Hall meeting in Washington state. h/t, Classical Values. I know what the Congressman is thinking inside: "Why do I have to put up with these damn annoying citizens when we have such good plans for them?"
In my view, no real American wants anybody to make plans for their lives.
We had speculated this this could be happening, but doubted that the Admin would really go this far: Breaking: White House Confirms It Used US Taxpayer Dollars to Sell Obamacare! Not legal, I believe, if true.
It's a scandal, possibly criminal (I am not a lawyer) - and it smells like Chicago.
Saturday, August 22. 2009
I appreciate the kind words about my attempting to cover our (almost) daily links post while the News Junkie is away. It takes too much time and care, but I am doing my best. However, I will be away part of this week through Labor Day for my undeserved trip. And I need to pack. While I usually travel light, this trip requires suits, sports jackets, ties, etc., along with the usual hideous but comfortable American tourist uniform - including my straw Stetson which was a fashion hit in Turkey a few years ago. When I travel with Mrs. BD, I think I look like an American dork who has had the luck or money to pick up a lovely Italian lady.
 Wind farms kill bats by the thousands. Oil does not.
First we had MADD (I agree that drunk driving is a bad thing, but that a couple of beers does not qualify.) Now we have Moms Aginst Ice Cream. What next bunch of controlling cranks will we have to deal with? Summer without ice cream is un-American. Also, Moms, there is always the little word "No."
Imagine if Bush had said it: We are God's partners. Government is God's partner? Give me a break.
Shelby Steele on why minorites are alienated from Conservatives.
It goes unpreported, but the Repubs have some medical care reforms that people might be interested in - and to be able to understand, too.
Theory: Obama thinks you're stupid. Zogby: the O hits new low in polling. Byrd at Wiz: When will Libs figure it out?
Noonan on Pull the Plug:
Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.
It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.
Priests, ministers and rabbis: beware -
Priests, beware. OFA’s health-care efforts are only the first of many community organizing projects to come. “Next is energy and then education, all before the new year,” says Kelley.
Related: Why do the Dems seem willing to drop insurance coverage of illegals? Cuz they plan to make them legal. The Dems are full of plans, and this is their only chance. Knowing this, immigrants bring mariachi bands and Mexican flags to hopey-changey free medical care rally.
Related: Democrats are right that uncompensated emergency care for the uninsured is driving up costs. What they don't say is it's illegal immigrants who are bankrupting ERs, and the federal government is encouraging them. Should I be paying for their kids' ear aches?
Having gotten the deficit to 9 trillion, the Prez takes a vacation. The plan is obviously to increase debt to the point that dramatic tax increases on everybody become required by the coming "federal debt crisis." Inflation won't solve it.
A fawning MSM asks Gibbs: What more can we do to help? I do not recall such solicitude towards Bush's people. At Insty:
JAMES TARANTO: Q: What’s the difference between the Associated Press and the Obama campaign? A: The AP admits the public is against it. “There’s one more difference between Obama and the AP: He is a politician trying to get a piece of legislation passed. One expects him to shade the truth, to downplay inconvenient facts. Politicians have even been forgiven for outright lies. By contrast, of what use is a news service that is not rigorously impartial and factual?” Oh, the Administration has found ‘em fairly useful.
Leavitt says:
Leavitt says that the Democrats are worried that their Trojan Horse has been spotted, so they are just looking for a new disguise to get the contraption through the gates.
Like that hasn’t been tried before.
Dressing it up in a bunny suit doesn’t make it into something else. Man the catapults.
The inept Gov. Paterson calls Media Racist. Must be that famously racist New York media.
From Politico:
By doing so much, so fast, Obama never sufficiently educated the public on the logic behind his policies. He spent little time explaining the biggest bailouts in U.S. history, which he inherited but supported and expanded. And then he lost crucial support on the left by not following up quickly with new and stricter rules for Wall Street. On Friday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman echoed a concern widely shared among leading liberals. “I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing.”
By doing so much so fast, Obama jammed the circuits on Capitol Hill. Congress has a hard time doing even one big thing well at a time. Congress is good at passing giveaways and tax cuts, but has not enacted a transformative piece of social legislation since President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996. “There’s a reason things up here were built to go slowly,” said another Democratic aide.
By doing so doing so much, so fast, he has left voters — especially independents — worried that he got an overblown sense of his mandates and is doing, well, too much too fast. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published Friday found that independents’ confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions had dropped 20 points since the Inauguration, from 61 percent to 41 percent.
Image via Opie, who says that she hasn't had much to say lately, but that the image captures most of it.
Friday, August 21. 2009
Excellent analysis by VDH: The strange case of the Obama meltdown. One quote:
Income is deemed arbitrary and compensation not rational; thus government is called upon to even things out given its greater wisdom and superior moral sensibility. The rapid growth in the state leads to permanent loyal constituencies of those who grant and receive entitlements—and could not be undone for generations, if ever. A religiosity surrounds these proposals, and critics (“fishy”) are targeted on email and websites, considered un-American and now un-Christian, in one of the most glaring examples of the utopian ends justifying devious means that we have seen in our lifetimes.
Related: Here comes the Blame Game
Photo is down the road from the Farm, in the Massachusetts Berkshires
Not satire: US Program Will Offer Rebates For Household Appliances. I guess I am being required to buy you a new fridge. Great.
'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe' by Christopher Caldwell:
In Europe, the author argues, the clash between Western civilization and the Muslim world has already been lost -- in the latter's favor.
Brit Dept of Energy and Climate Change refuses to turn off their A/C. Related: Greenpeace admits gross exaggeration to produce alarm
At Driscoll: “Obama Would Like You To See Government As Religion”. Not just the O. I think it is a fundamental assumption - or pose - of the Left that government can be a god and alter reality. The illusion appeals to those guided by wishful thinking, because history shows that governments tend to screw up whatever they touch.
Related: Obama: Medicaid and Medicare are broke, so let us take over everyone’s health care. That is what seems to crazy about all of this.
Charlie Cook: Dem situation has 'slipped completely out of control'. Related at RCP: Amateur Hour at the White House. Look at the map.
From Byron York:
Remember the anti-war movement? Not too long ago, the Democratic party's most loyal voters passionately opposed the war in Iraq. Democratic presidential candidates argued over who would withdraw American troops the quickest. Netroots activists regularly denounced President George W. Bush, and sometimes the U.S. military ("General Betray Us"). Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, became a heroine when she led protests at Bush's Texas ranch.
That was then.
Riehl on the Leftist Dems:
They know the battle is significant enough to be won over time. And they know this is an important enough gain to matter in their drive to eliminate private health insurance and make it a government run program from beginning to the end.
Cradle to the grave, that's how they view power over the citizen, all for the government's good, while they try to dress it up as the common good. The only thing common about the Democrats is the greater benefit and power that accrues to government, not the people, when it comes to any of their not so grand plans.
From Sowell:
Since it is their own money that they have earned, these people feel free to spend it to give their 80-year-old grandmother another year or two of life, or to pay for a hip replacement operation for their mom or dad, even If some medical “ethicist” might say that the resources of “society” would be better used to allow some 20-year-old to talk over his angst with a shrink.
Barack Obama has talked about the high costs of taking care of elderly or chronically ill patients in terms of “society making those decisions.” But a world in which individuals make their own trade-offs with their own money is fundamentally different from a world where third parties take those decisions out of their hands and impose their own notions of what is best for “society.”
This is good-natured fun: WH announces that Obama has Bipolar Disorder:
White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase
Thursday, August 20. 2009
 Just one humble thought about the government's apparent desire to control the purse-strings of medical care, and then to hire "experts" - our betters, no doubt - to ration it "rationally" (ie on an amoral, communitarian utilitarian basis) to cut costs:
It's our money. All of the government's money is our money. If we didn't make it, they wouldn't have it.
What went wrong in American history such that a government could even imagine making such personal decisions for us, with our own earned dollars?
Yes, I know that I am politically naive. I intend to remain that way.
Photo: Wellfleet, MA last summer
Remarkable story. The lost photos of Hiroshima. h/t, Am Digest
Want to sign the Free Our Health Care Now petition?
Here comes bad news: Media Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable re that "guy with an assault rifle." 1. It was a Pro- Dem Reform rally and 2. The guy was black. h/t, Hot Air
Unbelievable. Can I compare thee to... the Grand Canyon?
Unbelievable. Busing in union guys from 146 miles away for phony Town Hall. Related: The danger in trying to fool ther people
A more nuanced view of Rahm Emanuel
Viking:
Get in line, Grandma - Here's Harvard economist Martin Feldstein with "Obamacare is all about rationing": "The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive." Wow, limited services and an extra trillion dollars in debt? What's not to love?
Bernie Sanders update:
The Senator in true Washington fashion declared that it was a human right that everyone be given what they want, and that the “rich” should pay for it all. As one aspiring to someday have a small degree of wealth, it was less than reassuring to know that my hard work, risk taking, and determination will be met with an even greater involuntary redistribution of what I earn. The health care debate aside, I had the opportunity to ask the Senator why he doesn’t preach more about individual responsibility, and why cautious, fiscally prudent Vermonters are being penalized for the largess of others.
Update on Senate races, incl NH and CT
Powerline: Dems in disarray. And at Commentary:
The supposedly smooth-running Obama Machine is sputtering. Unaccustomed to governing, seemingly in over their heads, and watching their signature domestic initiative turn radioactive, Obama and company are trying to find excuses to latch on to enemies to blame. But this dog won’t hunt. What we’re seeing is a transparent and slightly pathetic effort at damage control. The Obama administration is in a slide; and they don’t know how to stop it. The promise of “hope and change” seems from so long ago and so far away.
Well, "questions of honesty and of competence begin to dog the O." But it cannot be his fault, can it?
This makes at least the second phony doctor at an O health care rally.
Representative democracy or rule of the elites:
MASSA: I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.
(inaudible participants’ comments regarding the “interests” of the district statement from Mr. Massa)
Massa: I will vote against their opinion if I actually believe it will help them.
I guess the "elites" like to imagine that we need help tying our shoes (and if we do, we can thank government education for that). Thus things like this: ACORN May Impose Lifestyle Regulations Under ObamaCare
Big Lizards:
Several pundits ... have quipped that if the Democrats are so anxious for a public (government) option in health-insurance reform, arguing that allowing the government to "compete" with private industry reduces cost without damaging quality, then why do they reject a "private option" for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and schooling?
Insty:
REASON TV: Richard Vedder, author of Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much, talks about — you guessed it — why college costs too much. Say, if college costs are rising faster than medical costs, isn’t that a crisis?
Surber on government involvement in our medical care:
In the 1960s, the excuse was the poor and the elderly had no health insurance and taxpayers should provide it. That brought in Medicare and Medicaid, which increased demand for health treatment, which was the idea and that is good. But the increase in demand drove up prices, which is fine too because higher prices attracted good doctors from around the globe.
The downside was the government’s refusal to pay in full for services rendered.
But we now have the best medical care in the world. Expensive? Yes, but darned well worth it.
Taking care of the poor, the disabled and the old pretty much ended the public’s desire for universal health care. Hillary tried it 16 years ago. A dozen years ago a Republican Congress approved S-CHIP, which covered lower middle-class children.
Now the excuse is the uninsured, who fall into 5 categories: illegal aliens, people with pre-existing conditions, the self-employed, people who qualify for a program but won’t take it, and people who could afford it but don’t want it. Of the five groups, the pre-existing conditions people draw the most sympathy and we can help them without going to uuniversal health care.
It is not the socialism.
It is the dishonesty.
Barack Obama won’t admit the truth about his plans to impose universal health care upon the nation. This does not help him gain support for his policies, and it undermines the public’s perception of him.
Related, from Reason in 1993:
When Medicare finally passed in 1965, Rep. Phil Burton (D-Calif.) expressed the sentiments of many among its Great Society enthusiasts when he said, "I am equally certain that before many years Congress will choose to extend comprehensive medical care as a matter of right to every man, woman, and child in this country."
So the history of Medicare and the outlook for the program over the next generation provide a sobering lesson for today’s would-be designers of national health insurance. Unfortunately, no one seems to be paying attention to what the Medicare experience has to teach.
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
If you like it, feel free to borrow or steal parts or all this email which I am sending (all Senate and House addresses here). It's just my first draft -
To my President, my Senators and my Congressman:
I strongly urge you not to support anything that would, could, or is covertly designed (which has been obvious) to lead to a government-controlled medical system. The idea of a government bureaucracy and government "experts" making decisions about my body is horrifying to me. But if government pays for it, they will have the ultimate control.
Everybody knows that the Dem goal is government rationing and control. Why Dems want that in a country that stands for individual freedom is beyond my comprehension. Furthermore, everybody knows that Pres. Obama is lying in his salesmanship. (If it's such a good thing, why lie?) As Rick Moran puts it:
...establishing a system that is deliberately designed to eventually replace private insurance with a single payer government program would never fly in a million years in this country and the left knows it. Hence, the lies about the public option.
The reality that Veterinary care in England and Canada is better, prompter, and more caring than human care is a cautionary tale about government control.
There must be a problem when I see a far-Left Liberal like Nat Hentoff getting worried:
Nat Hentoff: "I am finally scared of a White House administration" [Andy McCarthy]
After all the battles over all these decades, it took Obamacare to scare the daylights out of the renowned libertarian lefty (whom I read in the Village Voice as a kid, debated on Iraq and the Patriot Act, and have always admired for his honesty). His column in the Jewish World Review is here.
The problem is the nationalization of a person's body, ultimately. I want the government's hands off my body and out of my personal life as much as possible. People like Dr. Zeke Emanuel (who does not practice medicine) are the sort of arrogant "We know what's best for you" types that disturb me the most.
Only I know what is best for me and my family. I want to be able to make the choices, to buy whatever insurance I want, to pay medical bills out of pocket if I want the services. And I do not want to see a politicized medical system where the loudest whiners get the money.
Let's step back from the ideological issues (I know the powerful Dems always want more government control of everything and rarely include personal freedom in their political calculus, while Conservatives want government to have less power), and look at the real problems.
The real problems, I think, are these:
1. People equate insurance with medical care. Wrong. That has been an unfortunate accident of history, and it was the fatal error of Medicare. We need much more Major Medical available for people. It is affordable, and it is true insurance.
2. Medical insurance businesses ought to be able to compete across state borders.
3. Portability. People ought to be able to keep a coverage they have.
4. Pre-existing conditions. Insurance regulations ought to require companies to pool those with pre-existing conditions, same as is done with multiple-claim drivers with auto insurance.
5. The costs of the Medicare program. It's almost free to the beneficiaries, regardless of their wealth or poverty. Government created that mess, so fix it, if you can, over time. (I think it should have been means-tested, but too late for that now. How about inching up the age? People in their 60s still work, nowadays. In their 70s too, and plenty of them longer than that.)
6. The uninsured. Let's think a bit about who they are, and what, if anything, ought to be done about them. Medicaid already covers the poor. I know that when I pay a hospital bill it includes a charge for the uninsured, the illegals, etc., just the same as my kids' tuition bill includes an additional charge for the scholarship kids, and just as the price of something at the store includes an additional charge for theft and pilferage. I quote from this essay:
As Steve Chapman argues in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and his allies are proposing way too big a hammer to address the nail representing what is wrong with American health care. The great majority of Americans are happy with their health care. Despite the propaganda, there are not 46 million uninsured Americans who cannot obtain health care or insurance. If you are here illegally, that might explain why you don't have health insurance (nearly 10 million of the 46 million). If you earn over $75,000 a year, and have no insurance (10 million of the 46 million), it isn't, except in very rare cases, because you cannot afford to buy a policy. You have made a choice on how to spend your money, and in essence, have chosen to self-insure . If you qualify for Medicaid or some other government program and don't sign up (another roughly 4.5 million, if not more), whose fault is that? Another 6.5 million of the so-called uninsured are actually insured by Medicaid or S-Chip, but the census taker does not know it. Sally Pipes argues that the number of "uninsured" who would qualify for existing programs is much higher -- as many as 14 million people.
7. Malpractice tort reform. All physicians admit to unnecessary expenses for CYA purposes. Legal concerns rather than medical judgement plays a far larger role in American medicine than people realize.
8. The money spent on medical care in America. I happen to think it's great. We spend more money on medical things because that is what people in wealthy nations do. Dental implants, new knees and hips, physical therapy, psychotherapy, arterial stents, antidepressants, Alzheimer treatments, lazer vision treatment, cornea transplants, etc. That's why Americans at age 70 are so active and in such good shape compared to anywhere else in the world. It's a good thing for medical care to be such a big driver of the economy: what better use of money is there? It only becomes a "problem" when government has to pick up the tab.
In conclusion, I ask that you folks in government please stop doing things "for us." We Americans can figure it out ourselves. We always have, through good times and bad.
Best regards,
Bird Dog
PS: If you wish to respond, please do not respond with the standard talking points. I do not buy them.
Via Synthstuff, the wonderful Daniel Hannan, MP, delivers a warning to America this week. Why isn't this guy the Tory leader?
16,000 year-old clay figure. In the Sabuniye tumulus. h/t, Jungleman. They always call them "mother goddesses" but I think it was just old-time T&A.
The Cahaba River. I knew nothing about this.
Forget Woodstock's anniversary. Tim Blair notes that this was the 45th anniversary of this very good stuff.
But it's groovy, man, that Arlo is a conservative. Like, far out.
Dick Armey: We'll march on Washington
Ban Ki-Moonbat Vies With Al Gore in Hysterical Self-Parody
Barone: Dear Young Obama Voter
Liberalism: Because we know what's best for you
Why the heck would they bring Howard Dean into this? Even more wacky, they bring in the E Word. Also, was that public option removal thing a head fake? What would Alinsky do? He would lie, wouldn't he? The ends justify the means.
Hey. What happened to the Anti-War Movement? Ah, my naive young friend. Now you see how the game is played.
From Yalie Never Yet Melted on Yale:
We have serious problems with expertise in the elite circles of the contemporary intelligentsia. Its members’ utter and complete lack of both testosterone and common sense tends to preclude the possibility of the combination of mastery of any particular specialized topic with demonstrated skill in the manipulation of words and symbols being associated with sound judgement or manly behavior.
Why Obama's Ratings Are Sinking: Americans will put up with a lot. But not with someone who imperils their future.
Dr. Sanity (I thought she retired from blogging):
All thuggish leftists and collectivists, including many of those we have elected to represent us in Congress; as well as the Taliban and other Islamofascist movements, intuitively understand that by controlling the education of the young, they can have an endless supply of fodder for their revolutionary utopia.
Controlling health care, as was pointed out in the previous post, helps them control everyone's life in the present. But, when they completely control education, then the political left will control the future and will have achieved their final victory.
BTW, "Hasta la victoria siempre" was the signoff used by Ernesto "Ché" Guevara in the last letter he wrote to Fidel Castro.
Dr. Melissa:
Who likes being treated like an idiot? No one. And yet, the Left and Liberals in general, speak to the American people like they’re morons. The absolute worst is Al Gore. The most insulting thing is the guy ain’t that smart and he comes across as a doltish buffoon and still has the nerve to lecture stupid Americans. It’s annoying...
And so, rather than engage Sarah Palin on the merits, even the editors at the National Review get lost in what they consider hyperbole. Elites hate hyperbole (except when they’re employing it to chastise the masses into using fluorescent lighting). The form-police ignore the substance because the messenger doesn’t have an air of hauteur and the Ivy league parchment required to engage in the “conversation”.
WSJ:
Right now the entire Beltway—including the West Wing—seems obsessed with finding out what went wrong with the administration's sales pitch. No one appears to think the problem might be substance. Or that the vague answers and vitriolic rhetoric we get from Democrats such as Mr. Reid convey a sense that the plans they favor will not hold up under public scrutiny.
Take this AARP and shove it
Goon Squads: Obama, ACORN, and the SEIU? They Go Way Back
Tuesday, August 18. 2009
Our contributor Roger de Hauteville, former King of Sicily and a Ted Kennedy fan, emailed me this artistic effort:
From The Panel, in the WSJ:
In fact, the logic of this moment was inevitable. Once government got its fingers on the health-care system, it was only a matter of time before it took it over completely. Now there's one limited pool of dollars while the costs are endless.
"You have the luxury of thinking only of yourself, but we have to think about everyone," says the professor of ethics. He's a celebrity and waxes eloquent every Tuesday and Thursday on Bill Maher Tonight. "This isn't the free market, after all. We can't just leave fairness to chance. We have to use reason. Is it better for society as a whole that we allocate limited resources for your operation when we might use the same dollars to bring many more high quality years to someone, say, younger?"
"I'm only 62."
He smiles politely.
"Look, it's not just about me," you argue desperately. "My daughter's engaged to get married next year. She'll be heartbroken if I'm not there for it."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you put on so much weight," says the medical officer. "I mean, you people have been told time and again . . ."
But the chairwoman is uncomfortable with his censorious tone and cuts him off, saying more gently, "Perhaps your daughter could move the wedding up a little."
Read the whole thing. I like the way Mark Steyn put it on the radio today: "They want to nationalize your body." Yes, while pretending to do you a favor.
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