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Throw the Bums Out
Here they go again -- our faithful representatives in Washington, that is. They're about to pass (Ed. It's done as of 6/26), without reading its 1,200-plus pages, an incredibly expensive and destructive cap and trade bill, which has little prayer of accomplishing what it sets out to accomplish but satisfies their urgent need to pay homage to their liberal ideology and secular humanist worldview.
Do you remember when Barack Obama was forced to give an answer to justify his advocacy of a capital gains tax increase in view of such taxes' history of actually decreasing revenues? The revenue reductions are worth it because it's a matter of "fairness," he said. Spread the misery. Likewise, with cap and trade, Obama and his congressional cohorts will wreak untold destruction on the economy and get little benefit in return.
I'm not exaggerating here. Doesn't it make sense that before enacting legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the purpose of reducing man-made global warming, Congress would investigate whether significant man-made global warming is occurring (as opposed to watching Al Gore's propaganda film and simply declaring, by fiat, that scientists have reached a consensus on the issue when they clearly have not)?
And if, after a thorough and balanced inquiry, they determine that it is occurring, shouldn't they next examine whether their proposed legislative remedy is likely to significantly ameliorate the problem?
But they not only have not conducted a bona fide examination of the man-made warming issue but also have not attempted to examine, in any remotely scientific way, how much their proposed bill would reduce global warming (assuming it exists to the extent they contend) or whether any such reductions would make any difference at all to humanity's short- or long-term health or happiness or anything else.
All of this would be outrageous enough if there were no economic costs associated with their proposal. But in fact, the costs would be astronomical and way beyond the calculations they are presenting -- fraudulently -- to the American people to stunt the opposition they'd encounter if the truth were revealed.
The truth is that there is no crisis, and all the hysteria they're generating is solely for the purpose of ramrodding this odious bill through Congress before the public realizes it has, once again, been duped and betrayed.
The Heritage Foundation's senior policy analyst for energy and environment, Ben Lieberman, has produced a stellar paper on these questions -- reproduced from his remarks at The Heartland Institute's Third International Conference on Climate Change on June 2.
Let me share a few of the highlights and encourage you to read the rest of his report -- and others like it -- online.
Based on available evidence and analysis, Lieberman concludes "that both the seriousness and imminence of anthropogenic global warming has been overstated." But even if we assume the problem is as bad as the hysterics claim, the proposed bill "would have a trivial impact on future concentrations of greenhouse gases. … (It) would reduce the earth's future temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree C by 2100, an amount too small to even notice." The bill would bind only the U.S., not other nations, many of which, like China, are "polluting" at a record pace. Also note that many European nations that have already imposed similar emissions restrictions have seen their emissions rise.
But what would the costs be for this quixotic legislative paean to earth goddess Gaia? Contrary to the flawed analyses being advanced by the bill's proponents, Heritage estimates that the direct costs would be an average of $829 per year for a household of four, totaling $20,000 between 2012 and 2035. But when considering the total cost as reflected in the cost of allocations and offsets, the average cost to that family unit would be $2,979 annually from 2012 to 2035. Adding insult and hypocrisy to injury, the bill would hurt the poor the worst because they would bear a disproportionate burden of the higher energy costs the bill would trigger.
Now here's the kicker. The bill is also projected to harm the manufacturing sector and cause estimated "net" job losses, averaging about 1.15 million between 2012 and 2030. The overall gross domestic product losses would average $393 billion per year from 2012 to 2035, and the cumulative loss in gross domestic product would be $9.4 trillion by 2035. The national debt for a family of four would increase by $115,000 by 2035.
Enough already. Throw the bums out.
ARRA News - The story out of Honduras is that the people of that stalwart little country have now taken it into their own hands to preserve their democracy in the most courageous action since they established their constitutional republic nearly three decades ago. Just as former Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales prepared to seize full power in direct violation of the nation’s Constitution, the military leadership – with the backing of the people – removed him from power.Nowhere in the world has socialism succeeded at anything except murder and power at the point of a gun. We dare not call it Communism here but that is always the result of Socialists' centralized power. Obama and his fellow traveling Democrats in Congress are now in the process of grabbing total control of every aspect of American life through the Health Care scheme and the Cap and Trade energy bills. The American freedom of my youth has ceased to exist.
Factually, Congressional mandates through the likes of the amoral Barney Frankus, Chris Dudd, Nancy Pelagrosi, Harry Rader, and that most capable of liars, B.H. Obama, have led to America foundering in debt the likes of which the world has never seen. Debt drowned the Soviet Union. I can't believe we are immune simply because we are the world's largest economy. The lust for power in Congress, particularly the Dems, has led us toward ruin.
Savagery has always been the hallmark of Socialism. In the Ukraine 7 million deaths, tens of thousands in Ethiopia, hundreds of thousands in each Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Kampuchea, Cuba, East Germany, Afghanistan, North Korea, and uncounted millions more in China and Tibet. Please don't say it cannot happen here. The Germans simply did not believe it could happen to them either but their National Socialist Party was responsible for millions of deaths in WWII.
Do my words seem hysterical? Have the words of so many martyrs to Socialism during the past century also been hysterical? The takeovers of every now Socialist country began in similar manners, through the supposed good intentions of their politicians bent on power at any cost. We are not exempt simply because we once loved freedom. Look at New Orleans. Many hundreds died because they expected government to take care of them and thousands more are now endangered for the same reasons; they are no longer able to take care of themselves and expect government to give them everything. One must always remember, no government, especially not republics nor democracies, have anything, money nor power, that it has not taken from the people.
Resisting Obama and his fellow travelers is mere patriotism. The "Tea Party" tax revolts and the increasing numbers of those who attend them are patriotic peaceful resistance but there is but one safe way to regain freedom. Throw all the bums out. Leave no current officeholder in power. Elect an entirely new congress. Yes, there are a few pols who still retain some integrity but they are dismally few in number. Better to be safe than sorry. Run them ALL out. Reduce the once great GOP and DNC parties to nothing. Vote Libertarian, Constitutional Party, or just Independent but don't vote for another party hack. We must start over, NOW, or become slaves. Resistance is patriotic. Passiveness is suicidal.
PL Booth, www.blueeyeview.blogspot.com 06/26/09
Obama says government is the best arbiter of health. Why is that? BO's plan insures only 16 million of the supposed 46 million uninsured of our nation. Of course, no one actually knows how many people actually lack health insurance but BO says it so we must accept it, even if wrong? Why is that? As many as 300 million Americans have health insurance (which IS NOT health care) so why should our entire nation be forced into government insured healthcare just to carry the other supposed 46 million?
A quick profile of the uninsured says ten million are illegal immigrants - which doesn't mean they don't get health care, free. Walk into virtually any emergency room in America and illegal immigrants are the bulk of patients. (Education and health care costs for illegal immigrants comprise from 16.4 to 20.5 percent of California's budget deficit. Figures are similar nationwide.)
Liberals (Dem Socialists) are urging Obama's nationalized health care plan cover illegal immigrants. The Washington Post suggests failure to include illegal immigrants in the new National health care redesign would create unemployment among U.S. citizens since businesses wouldn't be forced to pick up the insurance tabs for illegals thus hire them at greater rates. This is likely true unless laws to prosecute businesses that hire illegal immigrants - or, better yet, not to require employers to cover employees – are enacted. Only Socialists would use employer malfeasance as an excuse to sacrifice workers' current insurance plans.
Another 9 million or so "uninsured" have household incomes of above $75,000, more than 3 times federal poverty standards for a family of four. For a mere married couple, that's 7 times federal poverty standard. Some 30% of these people are temporarily without health insurance, normally for six months or less, between jobs. Many others voluntarily avoid health insurance; even if they can afford it (My wife and I did during our youth. So did my kids.)a perfectly reasonable position. Factually, many people worry less about paying for the occasional visit to the doctor than paying monthly premiums. The Obama plan would force insurance on all these people then force public (Government controlled and paid for) insurance on the rest of us. Kindly remember, government has nothing it doesn't first take from us – its citizens – first. The PUBLIC will have to pay for Gov. Insurance through taxes.
Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute and author of The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care says there are "12 million uninsured Americans … eligible for Medicaid and the State Children's Health insurance program -- but they haven't signed up,". Again, voluntary behavior is voluntary, not an excuse for government involvement.
OK, let's sum up. Of those 46 million "uninsured," 31 million uninsured require no fix from the federal government. That leaves 15 million uninsured unaccounted for. The nationalized health care plan Obama proposes, shifts health care insurance for literally 95 percent of the population to a FEDERALLY controlled plan on behalf of 5 percent of our population, the 5 percent who, like illegal immigrants, receive FREE emergency care anytime under current federal law. Why is that?
The media and BO portray the American health system as a system in crisis by pointing to skyrocketing premiums. Costs of a family policy is now approximately $1,000 per month for employers. Obama says, "One out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care in a decade." Premiums for family coverage have risen 78 percent since 2001. The current Government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, comprise a huge chunk of the federal budget. In ten years, they'll comprise more than any other government expenditure. You might consider this as well. Social Security is now broke taking in less than it spends each and every month.
Why are these costs rising exponentially higher? Because of current increased government involvement in the health care system. State regulations decrease market flexibility by requiring that insurers cover unhealthy individuals at lower-cost and requiring insurers cover certain hospitals and doctors. Federal and State governments require health care providers (Insurers and medical personnel) care for individuals without reimbursement which means continually escalating costs for those who do pay, the general public and taxpayers. Both federal and state health care subsidization programs encourage health care providers and insurance to raise prices, our costs, to break even. More government equals higher costs, not lower.
The answer should be more free markets, not less. Competition between insurers, not government monopoly, would lower costs. The correct answer is an expanded private system, not a public one paid for by public taxes. There is no single payer system anywhere in the world that gives better care than we get in the USA, now
Lancaster, PA: The Constitution Party National Committee unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. Senate to deny the confirmation of President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, 2nd Cir. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
The resolution was agreed upon at the party's recent National Committee Meeting held in Newark, N.J.
Constitution Party members from more than 30 states attended the meeting where the resolution was approved. The resolution strongly decried Obama's pick for Supreme Court judge for her lack of adherence to the principles necessary to rule objectively as a justice of the country's highest court.
The resolution cites Sotomayor's lack of fidelity to the Constitution in a number of areas including her denial of " the applicability of the individual right to bear arms protected by the 2nd Amendment to the citizens of the several states;" because "she supports giving voting rights to convicted murderers who are still serving time in prison…"; because " she has been a member of the National Council of La Raza, many of the leaders of which favor amnesty for illegal aliens and the return of the southwest United States to Mexico…" and because "she favors racial and ethnic quotas in education and employment…"
Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer said "Americans from across the political spectrum have little patience with the kind of blatant bias this woman has shown in the past through her affiliation with a racist group and her pronouncements that a woman of her race could be a better jurist than a "white male" (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/28/in-her-own-words-sotomayor-2001-latina-speech/).
"President Obama has hand-picked another cog in the wheel in the mechanism he's designing to abrogate the Constitutional rule of law and its guarantees of liberty for all Americans. Sotomayor simply should not be given the opportunity to carry out her practice of substituting personal ideology for the Constitution on the highest court of the country", Clymer added.
The Constitution Party adopted other resolutions including a condemnation of the federal government's so-called "bailouts" of the private banking and auto industries.
Fact is, once upon a time I thought of and often spoke of Willy Boy Clinton and his wife, Hillarious, as the most dishonest, lying, pissant politicians I'd ever known or that had ever dishonored the Oval Office or congress. Honesty requires me to publicly admit I was wrong, dead wrong and I wish to hereby apologize to both the Clintons. The fact is our current President, Barrack H.(Barry Soetoro)O'Bama puts them both to shame as professional liars. They are merely rank amateurs in comparison to our current prevaricator and top only his sycophants amongst congress and the broadcast media for dedication to mendacity.
BO has scarcely made any truthful public statement since the very beginnings of his long presidential campaign. He has prevaricated about his birth circumstances, place, citizenship, education, who raised him, where, his school studies, transcripts, jobs, acquaintances, friends, religion, income, attitudes, intentions, agenda, appointees, efforts, work ethic, promises, the importance of various legislations, how much money he is and intends to spend, present and future deficits, and the overall costs to our nation. Ole Willy is merely a normal dishonest, self-worshipping politician in comparison. Bo's arrogance, narcissism, and dedication to Socialism's "Big Lie" is truly awe inspiring but the ease with which he lies is frankly annoying. The media's worshipful affair with his every proclamation defies rational explanation but they are making careers of enabling him to get away with it all.
Examples are so numerous any sane adult with a pulse must surely be aware of many instances. He has never released an actual birth certificate and college records indicate he received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE. Along with evidence he was born in Kenya, there is no record of his ever applying for US citizenship. If he was actually born in Hawaii then he lied to get his education paid for but if actually born in Kenya (as then claimed), he isn't legally president which is why there are numerous (18) pending lawsuits concerning his records. We know he lied about his friends and acquaintances, even his church pastor, why not his birthplace? Of course, Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, is the ultimate law enforcement official who must judge whether or not the lawsuits may be pressed or suppressed.
He told us his would be the "most completely honest" administration in history. Many of his appointees are tax evaders forced to pay back taxes (or who could not hold office because of their dishonesty) including his main advisor, Rahm Emmanuel, a long time supporter of wealth redistribution and Timothy Franz Geithner the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Even his current appointment for the Supreme Court has been proven a lying racist judge whose findings have been many times overturned by Superior Courts. In another instance, when he jammed through the trillion-plus-dollar pork pie, he claimed it was so urgently needed, he couldn't even spare legislators 48 hours to read the 1,100 pages. However, once they passed the bill, Obama still waited four more days before flying off to Denver to sign it during a photo op. Lately, he says the Government hasn't taken over GM nor caused Chrysler to be taken over by Fiat nor does he want government to take over Health Care, Insurance Companies, nor Banks. Right, and the Pope doesn't want to go to Heaven, either.
Really, Mr. Clinton, I'm sorry I ever labeled you the Prevaricator in Chief. It is just that you happened to hold the highest office in the land at that time. But now your every effort has been surpassed with an ease that I find truly awe inspiring. I guess that is why Media people are prostituting themselves so completely. They, too, are in awe of BO and all his accomplishments. After all, in the history of the world, no single person has ever caused a country's more rapid decline and fall into socialism than has BO. He is truly the human pinnacle of deceit. I hope you will accept my heart-felt apology. The worst of luck in your quest to become the Secretary General of the United Nations although, at his present rate, BO may beat you to that as well.
PL Booth, WWW.BlueEyeView.blogspot.com 06/22/09
June 19, 2009 - 7:45 ET
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GLENN: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership: I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
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Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
(CNSNews.com) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) vowed Monday that the Senate would consider a "comprehensive" immigration reform bill that would include giving amnesty to illegal aliens—an item he referred to as "bringing the 11 million people out of the shadows."
Reid said that Senate consideration of a massive new immigration bill would come after the Senate dealt with the health-care issue and energy.
The Senate is now looking at a national health-care plan being promoted by President Obama and legislation that would cap carbon emissions in the United States in the name of fighting "climate change."
"I know that I talked to the White House, recognizing they were going to have a meeting, and gave them my ideas as to what should be the lay of the land on immigration," Reid told reporters on Monday.
"I said in this room last week that I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm looking very closely at doing immigration," Reid continued.
"I think it's something that we have to do. It's important," Reid said. "I've outlined to you on a number of different occasions what I think should be in the legislation. I think it's extremely important for our country. We have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair.
"I'm going to do comprehensive immigration reform," said Reid. "I'm not going to do it piecemeal. That's an excuse for everybody to do too little.
"We're going to do it all at once," he said, "and we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform that will include taking care of our borders, a decent guest-worker program, bringing the 11 million people out of the shadows, doing something that is so important with the employer sanctions bill that really is a catch-22 for everyone."
"We're going to do it all in one piece of legislation, not give people an excuse that they voted for one thing and think that they're through with it,"
Walter E. Williams, 06/17/09
"Live Free or Die" is the title of author and columnist Mark Steyn's speech at Hillsdale College, reproduced in Imprimis (April 2009), a Hillsdale publication that's free for the asking. Canadian born, now living in New Hampshire, Steyn has had firsthand experience with socialist tyranny in his home country that is rapidly becoming a part of America. Commenting on one of his run-ins with Canada's human rights commissions, Steyn points how it might seem bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of that alliance is pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists and the other half is homophobic, misogynist theocrats. Steyn argues what they have in common overrides their differences, namely, "Both the secular Big Government progressives and the political Islam recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential."
I doubt whether there are many Americans who think Congress has either the right or competency to choose where they live, what clothes they wear or what cars they drive. Yet many Americans stand ready to allow Congress to decide what doctors they go to and what treatments they receive. We forget that once we have government-sponsored health care, it can be used to justify almost any restraint on liberty. That's the justification behind helmet and seatbelt laws. Britain is well along the road toward totally controlling health care. Steyn says, "Under Britain's National Health Service, for example, smokers in Manchester have been denied treatment for heart disease, and the obese in Suffolk are refused hip and knee replacements. Patricia Hewitt, the British Health Secretary, says that it's appropriate to decline treatment on the basis of 'lifestyle choices.'" Steyn adds, "Smokers and the obese may look at their gay neighbor having unprotected sex with multiple partners, and wonder why his 'lifestyle choices' get a pass while theirs don't. But that's the point: Tyranny is always whimsical."
In most of the developed world, the government has gradually taken over many of the responsibilities of adulthood from health care, childcare, care of the elderly and other responsibilities formerly seen as individual or family. Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman suggests that American conservatives preaching "family values" is hypocrisy while Europeans live it. On the continent, Krugman says, "Government regulations actually allow people to make a desirable tradeoff -- to modestly lower income in return for more time with friends and family." Steyn insightfully observes, "As befits a distinguished economist, Professor Krugman failed to notice that for a continent of 'family friendly' policies, Europe is remarkably short of families. While America's fertility rate is more or less at replacement level -- 2.1 -- seventeen European nations are at what demographers call 'lowest-low' fertility -- 1.3 or less -- a rate from which no society in human history has ever recovered. Germans, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks have upside-down family trees: four grandparents have two children and one grandchild." Steyn asks, "How can an economist analyze 'family friendly' policies without noticing that the upshot of these policies is that nobody has any families?" My answer to Steyn's questions is: the kind of economist that looks at the seen and ignores the unseen.
Mark Steyn provides us with a historical tidbit. "Live Free or Die," which graces New Hampshire's license plate, are the words of John Stark, New Hampshire's Revolutionary War hero. He uttered those words decades after the War when he was 81 years old, the complete sentence being: "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." Steyn says these words should not be interpreted "as a battle cry: We'll win this thing or die trying, die an honorable death. But in fact it's something far less dramatic: It's a bald statement of the reality of our lives in the prosperous West. You can live as free men, but, if you choose not to, your society will die."
Posted by the Blue Eye View
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