Newt is right. The argument in most approved media circles about health care is between what brand of crappy government intervention we want - as if that’s our only choice. It’s like walking into the grocery store after 3 days without food and arguing over which brand of sunflower seeds you’d like to have while the ribeye steaks are two aisles away. Here are a few alternative discussions. If we could have one public figure back who’s passed away over the past 10 years, we should undoubtedly ask for Milton Friedman. God love Michael Jackson but we truly need Milton:
These are all interesting points and they certainly cast the townhall discussions on your local TV stations in a different light. Don Bordeaux asks what to me is the most significant question of all:
“Does anyone seriously suppose that decisions by government bureaucrats over who will get, and who will be denied, some expensive lifesaving procedure would be better than having such decisions made according to each patient’s willingness and ability to pay?”
This is what it boils down to. Obama and his football team of czars clearly come down on the side of bureacrats as we’ve seen from nearly everything they’ve sponsored thus far. They want to tell you what to drive, what to eat, what to drink, whether you should smoke, what you should spend your money on, how much you should spend, which companies should survive vs. which ones should fail, whom they should hire, whom they should fire, how much gasoline and energy you should use, what kind of light bulbs you can buy, and now what kind of medical treatment you should get. Obama and the Democrats have been in power barely six months and they’ve already made a mess that will take generations for us to dig out of. I shudder to think what the next two years may bring.
“We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth.”
Truly remarkable. Let me get this straight: On one side we have the skeptics who feel quite confident that there’s nothing wrong with the planet - and that even if there were, asking Congress to fix it is like asking the family dog to change the brake pads on your car. On the other side, we have this president and his green brigade in Congress trying to convince us that we need to pass a 1200 page tax increase to take us back to Lyndon Johnson’s government so we can get global temperatures back to where they were in the Lincoln administration. Otherwise, the entire world will end. And who’s afraid of the future again?
“‘If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care … then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?’ Obama said in response to a question at a White House news conference.
‘That’s not logical,’ he scoffed, responding to an industry warning that government competition would destabilize the employer system that now covers more than 160 million people.
Come on. Government has the power to coerce and operate at extraordinary levels of debt. They make the rules. Private companies on the other hand have to spend responsibly and comply with the law in order to remain viable. It’s equivalent to allowing the home team call balls and strikes. This guy was a law professor? What a joke.
“‘The United States is the only country that can convince Iran that it is not as threatened as it thinks it is, and that’s crucial to the negotiations [over Iran's disputed enrichment program],’ Niblett says. ‘The Obama Administration is playing it absolutely right: it is determined to convince the Iranians that its goal is not regime change. Any public denunciations could damage Obama’s efforts to coax Iran out of its defensive posture.’”
Our goal should be regime change. That certainly doesn’t have to mean interfering with outcomes but it should not prevent us from taking a strong stand against what Iran’s government is doing. When the President of the United States is afraid to categorically condemn the violent suppression of free speech and elections because of personal political considerations, something is gravely wrong. Nuclear proliferation is obviously undesirable but if the price of preventing it is a tacit endorsement of the very same oppression generations of American soldiers have died fighting, the price is too high.
In an article written almost exactly fifteen years prior to the date that the above embedded video was recorded, this writer (a rather green college student at the time) made the following prediction:
“Just think of all the health risk the average person takes on each day. Eating too much ice cream, not participating in an active physical fitness program, drinking a few beers at a football game, or not wearing a condom during sex. After all, is one vice really any worse than the other?
All of the ridiculous do-gooder studies that determine healthy lifestyles suddenly take on greater meaning. Without the Clinton plan, government had to manufacture an artificial concern for its votes in order to rationalize its involvement in such issues. If the plan passes, shiny happy people everywhere will be able to justify government intervention by threatening your wallet. Richard Simmons could become the next surgeon general.”
So here we are. At the time I wrote the above, Hillary was making a shambles of her husband’s health care campaign promises. Presidents Clinton were then proposing a “sin tax” on tobacco (now where have we heard that before?) to help fund their plan. In those days taxes on fatty foods and sugary soft drinks were not particularly mainstream, though Hillary admitted they sure sounded like a good idea. These days, Ali-Bama and the Forty Czars propose new sin taxes faster than Kim Jong Il can produce idle threats to everyone not named Kim Jong Il.
Look, God bless Richard Simmons. He has devoted his life to helping people achieve physical fitness (and even he recognizes we are “overtaxed”). It’s all great so long as it remains voluntary and fun. However, all of these grandiose movements towards universal health coverage, allowing the FDA to regulate tobacco, Obama threatening Cheerios, trans-fat taxes, salt taxes, sin taxes, et al. have an entirely different goal. Once government sidles up in bed next to these gigantic insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and other corporations in an effort to “cut costs,” Sweatin to the Oldies volume Seven Hundred and Fifty Five will be a fond memory. What power will remain to the individual seeking to protect himself from the combined and insatiable appetites of the State and institutions deemed “too big to fail”? Read Chapter One, Part III of Geroge Orwell’s 1984 if you care to imagine how it might be when the individual sacrifices his own health and well being to the ward of society at large and cutting those “costs” becomes the mandatory objective of the all-powerful State.
I will start watching this show when an episode comes out where these fools and their stocking pirate hats are blown from the frozen waters. And let’s be clear, Japan has every right to do it. These people are terrorists plain and simple. They have a history of reckless stupidity (not to be confused with courage), vandalism, condemnation even from other environmental groups and putting the lives of crews - their own as well as those of their targets - in jeopardy. To top it off, their so-called cause is laughably ridiculous. I would have similar disdaid for a reality show following Osama Bin Laden around his tent during the Afghan summer.
“So the commissioner changed his mind and fined James $25,000 for skipping the postgame news conference after Cleveland lost to Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals.”
Just another example of the arrogance of the modern news media. The guy worked and played his ass off all season to get to the point he did only to come up short at the end. So what if he didn’t entertain inane questions from a bunch of buffet grazing freeloaders after the game? Fans care about the game. Only the news media cares about Lebron’s stupid press conference afterwards. Stern should be sticking up for the best player in his league, not cowering to the illiterati.
“Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.
(APPLAUSE)
Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be. Today America has a dual responsibility to help Iraq forge a better future and to leave Iraq to Iraqis.”
Well, that’s probably about as much credit as George Bush will get from this generation for the work his administration performed in Iraq. History perhaps will tell a different story.
I think this was a great speech. It’s a much improved tone from the “please forgive us” stance that the administration seemed to take at the beginning of his presidency. Neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton could have delivered such an address. It remains to be seen what effect these words will really have. Some of the partnering actions he suggests are rather trite in view of the scope of the challenge this President has chosen to tackle. Ironically, the Muslim community has many of the same criticisms for this President that Americans do - long on talk, short on action.
Still, you have to start somewhere. Here is President Obama meeting this challenge head on. It is significant that these words are coming from the President himself and not simply someone in his cabinet. Maybe he can change some opinions on both sides of the fence. There are moments in history that call for great speeches and speeches that become great moments in history. I think the entire planet earnestly hopes that this will be an example of the latter. Whether that hope can be fulfilled remains to be seen:
“I think people fail to understand that tyrannies — including soft, Huxleyan tyrannies — aren’t born from criminal conspiracies by evil men; they’re born by progressive groupthink. I have an abiding faith in the liberty-loving nature of the American people. But I think we are laying down the foundation for a challenge to that nature the likes of which we haven’t seen since Wilson was in office.”
This is a great interview about an important book written by Jonah Goldberg. So often the word “tyranny” is dismissed as some Hitler or Stalin nightmare when really, that is not how any of them begin.
“America has failed for too long to adequately protect the security of its computer networks, President Barack Obama said Friday, announcing he will name a new cyber czar to press for action.”
This guy is like a mad lib. For too long America has failed at _____. Hence, I intend to appoint ______ to oversee _____. Further, I will invest ______ to improve ______ because ______ has been neglected for far too long.
That’s pretty much every speech. Yes I know, Obama has surrounded himself with the very best and brightest America has to offer, and he’s going to appoint as many of them as he can find to as many cushy taxpayer jobs as he can think of so they can mind as much of the people’s business as they can get their noses into. A car czar, a cyber czar, a climate czar, an energy czar, an economy czar, a health czar… it never ends. What activity in America does not require a czar and the accompanying billions of taxpayer dollars thrown at it?