Posted on 08/03/2009 2:12:29 AM PDT by joanie-f
One of the loudest, and most oft-repeated, reasons given by our elitists in Washington for the need to dramatically overhaul the most effective and efficient healthcare system in the history of mankind is that healthcare in America is too expensive.
I have read countless analyses of the bill by those who have at least attempted to read it. And nowhere in H.R. 3200 -- at least to my knowledge -- is tort reform addressed. Tort reform should sit on the top of the list of remedies for our high healthcare costs. Reducing jury awards would reduce malpractice insurance premiums. Reducing malpractice insurance premiums would reduce physician and hospital costs. And reducing physician and hospital costs would have a dramatic effect on the overall cost of healthcare in America.
Why, then, is tort reform a non-issue? Put simply: Congress is in the pocket of the trial lawyers. They can demonize the insurance industry. They can demonize drug companies. They can insinuate that physicians perform unnecessary surgeries in order to inflate their bottom line. But where are their rants against the mountains of frivolous malpractice lawsuits that are not only adding dramatically to the overall cost of healthcare, but are also driving thousands upon thousands of good doctors out of business?
(*crickets*)
Trial lawyers are a sacred cow. The anti-capitalist elites pick and choose their self-created enemies of the people with power-based skill.
I have determined to read in its entirety H.R. 3200, not so that I can join the crusade to derail the abomination popularly known as the healthcare reform bill although I certainly will do my best in that regard but simply because I believe that it may be among the most important (this time in an infamous sense) piece of legislation ever deliberated upon in the history of our republic. I want to know what it contains before my family and I become unwilling, but inevitable, victims of its toxins.
I say inevitable since the limitations this bill places on citizen choices for private health insurers (i.e., the ability to change from one private insurer to another, or the ability to alter an existing policy) are virtually non-existent. Combining that infringement on our liberties with the fact that government-care premiums will undercut private health insurers, it is just a matter of time before the American people, and American business, have no choice but to submit completely to a government healthcare monopoly in which bureaucrats ... many of them unelected and unaccountable to the electorate ... will be making life and death decisions for us all.
I have been reading for about a week now and am up to page 200 (of 1,017). I wish there were 100 hours in a day ... or that the bill were significantly more straightforward and didnt require six readings of each paragraph. Reading this monstrosity is slightly more uncomfortable than repeatedly sticking oneself in the eye with a hot poker. The verbiage is an acute example of overkill, and yet the intent of most of it is still nebulous.
I have spent hours on some of the sections reading certain paragraphs over half a dozen times because their intent is so unclear and I often come up with more questions than answers.
For instance, one example (of countless):
Upon the urging of a friend, I temporarily skipped ahead to page 424 which tackles Advanced Care Planning Consultation. I did that because so many conservative bloggers are claiming that the end of life planning in that section is euthanasia-related.
I found that the section apparently amends the Social Security Act, in that it offers a Medicare-covered advanced care planning consultation every five years. Yet I cannot find anywhere in the section a reference to whether this consultation is voluntary or mandatory (as some are reporting). It would seem to me that that stipulation is of some importance.
Such grey areas are extraordinarily dangerous because the bill is so convoluted and complicated that, were it to become law, I can envision many instances where interpretations would wind up in court (and it is rife with interpretation-inviting wording), and the results would depend on which activist judges were to render the decisions with alarming precedents begin set all along the way, of course.
I actually concur with John Conyers opinion that it is a gargantuan task to read this bill but it would require significantly longer than his 'two days' to do (I would estimate, conservatively, a good week, at eight solid hours a day). And even then a conscientious reader would have a mile-long list of let-me-get-this-straight questions to set before an attorney.
The difference between me (and you, dear reader) and Congressman Conyers, though, is that the dishonorable Mr. Conyers is paid to read and understand the legislation on which he votes. His Michigan constituents expect him to have a working knowledge of bills that he supports and votes to include in the law of the land.
I truly doubt that any of the 535 people who dare to call themselves our leaders in the House and Senate will expend the time and effort to read through this entire bill. So, in a truly representative republic, in which those representatives take their public servant role seriously, it seems to me there are two alternatives:
(2) Wait to vote on the bill until you have read, and understood, everything it contains
Or, better yet, our leadership might want to re-read (or perhaps read for the first time?) the United States Constitution, whose over-riding emphasis is on limited government and individual liberty -- and which clearly specifies the minimal role of the federal government.
Our Founders were very specific in the parameters they defined as the powers of the federal government. Its powers consisted of those powers that the individual citizen, or the states, could not efficiently perform themselves, such as providing for the common defense of the nation (i.e., securing the borders perhaps?), ensuring unhindered, safe trade on the high seas, crafting treaties with foreign governments on behalf of the republic, regulating interstate commerce ...
Our Constitution states that the American citizen has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Healthcare ... or many of the other rights that our government has convinced us were bestowed upon us by God (and they have convinced us of this simply in order to incrementally become godlike themselves, in order to ensure a kind of perverted equality in achieving theses faux-rights) ... is not enumerated, either literally or by insinuation, in the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness vision.
Healthcare is a good, and a service, not a right. It is something a citizen is expected to earn. And, if a citizen is incapable of earning that good/service, then, in a moral society, private entities will work to pick up the slack. Genuine liberty always results in an increase in human charity, which in turn promotes self-reliance. Government programs for those in need destroy charitable organizations and foster dependency. Trouble is, in America 2009, goods and services are gradually morphing into rights. And with each successive addition to the list of 'rights' comes an increase in the dictatorial power of the federal bureaucracy.
Many a power that should have remained in the hands of the people and/or the states (see the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people) has been usurped by the elitists in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Not only have they taken our liberties from us, but they are now dictating, extra-Constitutionally, tyrannical boundaries on those liberties that remain, and they intend to enforce their illegal laws with a fascist ferocity that would have rendered Mussolini green with envy.
As far as I am aware there has not been a Constitutional amendment that permits the federal government to:
(2) force an employer to provide a specific kind of healthcare for his employees (let alone micro-manage that policy down to the last dotted i and crossed t).
(3) designate a federal bureaucrat, or committee, to determine accessibility of healthcare options to various segments of the citizenry
(4) force private healthcare plans (read: free market businesses) to enroll certain clients
(5) use public money to pay for insurance for some, citizens and non-citizens
(6) require government access to personal health records
(7) dictate payment limits for healthcare services
(8) require the citizenry to purchase insurance
(9) place employment obligations, dictating fields of study, on the states
and on and on, ad infinitum ...
I defy anyone to find anything in that precious document that permits the federal government to limit our freedoms, and impose the draconian requirements and penalties on the separate and sovereign states, individuals and businesses, as outlined in this legislation. The Tenth Amendment strictly prohibits all of the above.
Here is the Presidents oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Here is the House and Senates oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
America has been betrayed by her leadership. Our public servants are introducing blatantly unconstitutional legislation that will have toxic, liberty-robbing, quality-of-life-altering ramifications far into the future. The legislation is so filled with draconian usurpations of power that even those representatives who will eventually vote on the finalized bill are freely admitting that they cannot reasonably be expected to familiarized themselves with its contents.
And they claim to be our public servants.
With every stroke of the pen, and every refusal to hold fast to their oath of office, they are declaring themselves enemies of the principles upon which this republic was founded. It is increasingly falling to the people to resurrect the Constitution and see that it is returned to its former pre-eminence. Ignorance of our roots and apathy that has kept us from holding our elected representatives accountable have led us to this place.
Its time for outrage.
The American Republic required strict limitation of government power. Those powers permitted would be precisely defined and delegated by the people, with all public officials being bound by their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. The democratic process would be limited to the election of our leaders and not used for granting special privileges to any group or individual nor for defining rights ... from A Republic, If You Can Keep It
~ joanie
A very good point, Joe. One of the reasons most Americans are not wise to their schemes (other than general apathy) is the inability to connect dots. They see and hear vague descriptions of what their government is doing; they know that it makes them uncomfortable, and yet they can't always understand, or explain, why.
... which is one of the reasons the American public 'education' system for the past fifty years has been focusing on teaching children what to think rather than how to think. It makes it ever so much easier to pull the wool over their eyes if someone else has to do their thinking for them.
However you, sir, are most definitely NOT dot-connecting-challenged. :)
I also applaud your comments on the speed with which this abomination is being rushed into law -- with the theory behind that being that the longer it takes the more the likelihood that the citizenry will begin to comprehend its contents (although the mainstream media are doing their very best to see to it that that doesn't happen).
Thank you for the valuable insights, eloquently expressed!
~ joanie
The framers anticipated this scenario..
Thats WHY we have the 2nd amendment..
The 2nd amendment was not penned for target practice, hunting or collection of military artifacts..
It was penned to Make revolution LEGAL.. and possible..
That is revolution from a rogue federal government..
The 2nd amendment is not for cowards..
Freedom is only insured by much blood and misery..
Cowardly citizens (Canada, England, Germany, China, Russia) NEED to be controlled by a rogue central government.. and they are..
One of the weapons I have noticed the left employing in this battle is the determination to call anyone who expresses such justified 'paranoia' a self-centered, uncharitable bigot (in so many words).
After all, we have been force-fed the mantra that our 'leadership' is doing this for the poor uninsured among us, so how then can we be against this 'philanthropic' effort? When will most Americans awaken to the fact that ... as you point out so convincingly ... one of the main focuses of this bill is to do away with people who are considered no longer productive and a drain on the Social Security/Medicare system?
Along that line, I posted a criticism of this bill on an investment-oriented board a week or so ago. Another poster came back at me with all manner of accusations, calling me 'greedy rich', uncompassionate, unwilling to pay higher taxs in order to benefit 'the least among us', and (of all things) an Iraq war hawk ... all of this based on opinions I wrote that were totally focused on the healthcare bill.
I responded, in part:
And yet, to you, anyone who expresses (admittedly conservative, in this case) common sense concern over aspects of this healthcare bill is automatically lumped into a pre-determined category which assumes that they fall into some universal right-wing lock-step, on all other issues completely unrelated to the issue at hand.
If you go back and re-read my short healthcare post, I suspect you may discern, with your jaundiced crystal ball, other personal characteristics of mine in addition to the aforementioned assumed anti-tax stance, ability to afford my own insurance, and hawkish war views. You may even determine that Im a gun-loving, Bible-thumping, flannel-shirt-wearing, tobacco-chewing, front-tooth-missing militia member who has more than one brother named Darryl.
Not necessarily saying Im not any of the above. Nor am I necessarily deprecating any of those characteristics either. Simply saying that I suspect that, to you, the presence of one mandates the presence of all. After all, we right-wing radicals are not capable of independent thought or differing views.
... and I am prepared to write something similar again, when the need arises. As are you.
H. L. Menken once said, 'The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.' I don't always agree with Mencken, and I would have inserted 'by government' after the word 'urge' in this particular observation ... but I applaud him nonetheless. :)
This entire healthcare reform is just a mendacious, untransparent, cobbled-together, half-baked, inane house of cards.
I believe I may do that in counted cross-stitch, frame it and hang it on the wall in my office so as to encourage dialogue about this travesty. :) I don't believe I've ever read a better description!
Thank you, as always, for your insightful, eloquent commentary, betty!
~ joanie
Bears constant drumbeat repeating.
Thank you, Alamo-Girl!
~ joanie
You can really bring a lump to the throat of this old Texan. We were the "Shining city on the hill" for a time weren't we.
Our Founders, with persistence, resolve and determination cast off the yoke of serfdom and set in motion the experiment by which liberty and freedom were let loose upon the world to sink or swim; come what may. It wasn't long before the rest of the world realized something very special had happened. Who amongst the huddled masses DIDN'T want to come to America?
It's been quite a journey for the nation. Ronald Reagan had us believing we could re-discover the righteous path America followed that allowed our nation to achieve greatness. However, evil never rests and the enemies of liberty redoubled their efforts to assure the likes of a Ronald Reagan never again gain prominence within the hearts of the unwashed.
I don't know if you've been following along or not, but a parting note: The ONLY thing I see having any chance of success in reclaiming our Founders' vision short of armed rebellion are 10th Amendment and other initiatives coming out of some of the states. Enough states drawing lines in the sand can only be ignored so long by the feral government before someone blinks. We'll just have to wait and see how that shakes out...
And best to you and yours.
The "urge to save humanity" is, of course, such a very very noble thing, bespeaking a love for one's fellow man that Bible-thumping, gun-toting citizens, in their abject ignorance and selfishness, simply do not have.
Whatta crock. People who say such things are either psychiatric patients or brain-dead narcissists. What they really object to is freedom the freedom of other people to do things they happen to personally dislike.
The biggest secret of such "lovers of humanity," as Fyodor Dostoyevsky described it, is twofold: (1) they believe that the divine gift of individual liberty is not only a complete waste since men are slaves by nature and unruly to boot, and experience the gift of freedom not as a blessing, but as a curse causing endless suffering; and so (2) man must be "saved" from this freedom in order to find "happiness."
They that claim to love us so much actually hold us in utter contempt. They find us wholly unfit to rule ourselves. Thus they, these self-appointed noble lovers of mankind, will take it upon themselves to make all things right, to make the right choices for us (since we don't know how to use our freedom and intelligence to make the kinds of choices of which they approve). We are to understand that this is a tremendous sacrifice on their part, undertaken in order to reduce the suffering of the rest of us dimwits that is to say, of every member of the entire human race that doesn't attend elite cocktail parties in New York, Boston, or Washington.
From the chapter "The Grand Inquisitor," The Brothers Karamazov, in which a self-selected sufferer taking on all the freedom of humanity in order to give them "happiness" rebukes Christ, who died to make us free:
...today, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet....The clever people. Who so "love" mankind that they are prepared to "suffer" for us, just so we can be happy. Oh goody. The cynicism, the atheism implicit in these passages is chilling, nauseating. They are the ultimate rejectionists: They reject, not only God, but man, and all of created nature as well.Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and will overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, "Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!"... there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger.... So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.
In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know he would at last reject even Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free choice?
...we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach them that it's not the free judgment of their hearts, not love that matters, but a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their conscience....
I don't want Thy love, for I love Thee not.... We are not working with Thee, but with him that is our mystery. [Note: him is the "wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-existence" who tempted Christ in the wilderness. If Christ had allowed Himself to be thrice tempted], Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth that is, some one to worship, someone to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap, for the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state....
For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands? We have taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh, ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written, "Mystery." But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men....
...they will love us as children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves....
And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferes who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity... Thou will come again in victory, Thou will come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all.... Know that I fear Thee not.... I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work....
...millions of God's creatures have been created as a mockery, that they will never be capable of using their freedom, that these poor rebels can never turn into giants ... that it was not for such geese that the great idealist [Plato] dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that [the Grand Inquisitor] turned his back and joined the clever people.
But this is the "stuff" that Washington is selling these days, people.
Wake up America!!! Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for THEE. And thine.
They love the abstract ideal of humankind, but deep down, they despise us all. We stand in the way of their perfect vision; we're the wreckers and saboteurs of Utopia. This why they hate us so, and this hatred is the nuclear fuel rod that has driven the last century's (and this one's) most monstrous mass murderers. What else could account for such barbarism and cruelty?
The lesson that most of us refuse to see is that you cannot negotiate with such men. Your arguments, your reason and logic, the irrefutable facts of history and science mean less than nothing to those who would rule us now.
You see, destruction, death, slavery and impoverishment is precisely what they seek. A free and prosperous people cannot be ruled. A free and prosperous people represent a direct and in-your-face refutation of every sick Utopian dream of power, slaughter and domination these monsters harbor.
The clock is ticking, and it's ticking down to the hour of mass murder, slaughter and atrocity beyond imagination.
And this seems too dark and extreme to some of you, well.. history is my witness.
Someplace around my cave I had two floppy's that are the full details of Hillary Care - that monstrosity that the Clinton's tried to ram down our throats. I am certain that they've been working on and refining it ever since, and have the perfect opportunity to try to ram it through again through this treasonous usurper and his myrmidons.
As to our illustrious Trial Lawyers (Ptui!) - two other points to consider; neither of which have a prayer of getting implemented without another revolution!
1) Loser Pays - but with a twist. Too many cases are filed by "Officers of the Court", under oath, that are specious, misleading, and plain false. They are brought to get a settlement before trial, in the hopes that the malpractice insurers will settle. Make the lawyer bringing and losing such suit liable for fully 50% of all costs and fees for both parties. Most cases would then go to trial, but there'd be a whole lot less of them to burden the courts.
2) All funds from the successful award relating to 'Punitive Damages' gets placed into the governments coffer; none is paid to either the plaintiff or lawyer. The purpose behind the punitive damages is to put others on notice that our Society does not countenance such behavior. As such, those funds should be reverted to the society.
Great essay, Joanie - as usual. Thank you.
Gloriously and truly said, dear Noumenon!
These people want us to buy into a total inversion of reality not to mention a total repudiation of the system of American order envisioned by our founding documents.
They are just so many thugs and criminals even as you say "monsters" in my book. But their problem is finally pretty "dicey" so long as they cannot disarm us. As long as the citizenry is armed, there is a limit to how much these folks can get away with, in the end.
Evidently, the government is aware of that problem and, back in the '90s, under the Clinton administration, conducted a study which attempted to assess the compliance of our "standing army" with orders to fire on their fellow citizens. (I never learned how that all turned out.) Which makes one wonder right there, because under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the U.S. armed forces are in general prohibited from use in a law enforcement capacity on U.S. soil.
From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress....We have the Constitution at our back on that one. But an Act of Congress is "a horse of a different color." Congress is simply insane nowadays, totally out of their minds. Obviously. These lunatic miscreants are capable of just about anything they have no principles whatsoever (except getting reelected), no honesty, no character, no honor and most of them are in total breach of their Oath of Office, nearly all the time.
But if it turns out they can't use the military to subdue us, then there's always a system of "brown shirts" that they can hope to organize for that purpose. Here entities such as Acorn, the Black Panther Party, the SEIU, and Americorps (where you get paid for doing "charity") offer real possibilities....
In the end, I continue to believe that what really lies back of all this is a twisted, perverted, implacable hatred of God and man and especially of the natural liberty that God endued in every human soul as the Declaration of Independence reminds us.
They so "love us," they'd be glad to destroy us. In a heartbeat.
These vicious monsters must be taken down. Or the American future is dead. How that will happen remains to be seen. May it be peacefully, through the 2010 congressional elections. But if not, then all bets are off as far as I can tell. May the enemies of the American public order reap the whirlwind that is coming for them....
Thank you so very much, dear Noumenon, for your absolutely splendid essay/post!
Its all been said before.. even here..
A political fire sometimes requires a back fire to stop it..
John Birch is not rolling in his grave.. he is going Duuuugh!..
I can hear him.. he sounds like a train coming..
The present situation has been predicted by more than him..
The Social Security(SAA) system has always been pure socialism from the beginning..
also; when something you own can be taxed you are paying rent to the government..
"Somebody" finally deduced that America is already, and has been, a covert socialist Utopian state why not make it a real one.. Obama and his backers are those people.. By the way they are not all democrats..
They won't leave their political position either unless forced out.. The ones that think John McLaim(Lynsay Graham) is any different are fooling themselves.. There is literally only one way to reverse Americas slide to overt despotism.. and that is by armed conflict..
Henry Waxman, Barney Frank, and Conyers desperately needs someone to slap the smile off their commie mugs.. and waterboard them for additional information..
Which is why our would-be "rulers" want it DEAD ASAP.
But it's not gonna happen. Not even with Sotomayor on the bench, or any other wholly unqualified nominee that Obama might appoint in the future. If the Supreme Court will not defend the Constitution, then the Court would just be another enemy of the people. Chief Justice Roberts, Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy my apologies to you, sirs, for saying as much. But if the Court betrays the American people by gutting the Constitution over your objections, the Court collectively (if only by the slimmest of majorities) will have shown itself to be an enemy of our system of liberty under law with equal justice for all. And therefore, an enemy of the people.
Truly I hope there are things that can be done before we have to resort to the (necessary and constitutional) expediency of armed defense against the encroachments of tyranny.
Here's an idea: There's a fine old American custom that might be due for a revival right about now. It's called "tarring and feathering and running [the miscreant] out of town on a rail." I imagine this would only have to be done a couple-few times to get the point across....
Could we please start with Nancy Pelosi???
Now the people are learning and educating themselves on health care and the reps are on the receiving end of that ire...as they should be over this monstrsity
But they too, many of them, the libs, leftists, RINO's also fear the truth.
It's time we hammer them over this monstrosity and cause them to fear us, more than they fear Pelosi, Reed, Or Obama.
And if they cancel their townhalls, organize and take it right to their offices.
Here is a link to the full House Democrat Health Care Plan in PDF. In Section 1233 E & F, pages 426-433, you find the part about mandatory end-of-life counseling for anyone over 65 years of age. Section 152 Page 50: All healthcare services will be provided without regard to "personal characteristcs" which is not defined within the document but is understood to include immigration status.
Section 224 b Page 125: The Secretary shall design and implement the payment mechanisms and policies under this section in a manner that (1) seeks to (B) reduce health disparities (including racial, ethnic and other disparities).
A lot more provisions now being documented at that site.
Donwload it, read it, study it, then hammer your reps over it and pass it on to all you know asking them to do the same.
HOUSE DEMOCRAT HEALTH CARE PLAN - http://www.jeffhead.com/DemHealthCare.htm
Also, here's a large image of the Democratic (Obama) Health Plan chart-another Obama empty promise. This is the one the House democrats are censuring. Email these links or the image to everyone you know.
Obama and all those pushing his radical agenda are abject marxist ideologues. Their "fundamental; change" is nothing more than a destruction of the American free market and fundamental republican principle.
A PETITION ON FACEBOOK FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RESTORATION
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
A 4TH OF JULY TEA PARTY SPEECH
UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA - A SONG
By Ron and Kay Rivoli
...and on the lighter side, take your mind off the Obamanation for a few minutes and enjoy some beautiful Western US scenery slideshows.
Bump
I do agree with you that the states are going to need to draw a line in the sand (as some are already doing as regards the Second Amendment, among other things) and not blink.
I see an outrage beginning to swell among some people who were heretofore completely apathetic about government and politics, but whether than outrage reaches a tipping point remains to be seen.
I suspect that the tree of liberty is going to have to be refreshed before this latest chapter in the history of America is completed. I just pray that it isn't the end of the book.
God bless you, FRiend!
~ joanie
Your observation that this current 'healthcare reform' (*cough*) is merely a scion of Hillarycare is well taken. I suspect that this bill has been authored in smoky back rooms over the last decade or more, and that it is even probably exponentially worse than the plan that Hillary was intending to put in place.
I truly believe passage of this bill, or anything even remotely resembling it, will represent the final, irremovable nail in the coffin of our beloved republic. The month of August 2009 represents a watershed time in which every American needs to envision himself a modern-day Paul Revere.
Thank you, brityank, as always for your valuable contribution to this discussion.
~ joanie
Somebody finally deduced that America is already, and has been, a covert socialist Utopian state why not make it a real one.. Obama and his backers are those people hosepipe
The pastor at a church we used to attend is a history buff, and his favorite president is Franklin Roosevelt. He used to occasionally, subtly imbue his sermons with minor references to Roosevelts magnanimity and altruism and its beneficial results for us all. A friend of mine, who was also a member of that church, used to swallow that concept hook, line and sinker, despite my attempts to point out the enormous contribution Roosevelt made toward Americas descent into socialism.
And then, as so often happens, a seemingly insignificant occurrence lit a spark in her mind and opened her eyes to so much of what I had been attempting to teach her.
She and her husband were touring Washington, D.C. and, upon visiting the Roosevelt Memorial, her eyes were drawn to the monument inscribed with his Four Freedoms. The Freedom From Want inscription was unsettling to her, and it served as a catalyst for many conversations we have shared since as a result of which her eyes have been opened to the socialist stench that has infested our republic for decades, and the contribution Roosevelt made to that cancer.
Despite her belated awakening, I suspect that she is light years ahead of most of the American citizenry in that they have little idea of what you describe as the covert socialist utopian state we have incrementally embraced.
Yet I believe that is changing what with the past seven months of express-train legislative abominations, and other extra-Constitutional rumblings, that have emanated from D.C.
To those of us who are paying attention, so much of this seems patently surreal.
Robert Bork, in his Slouching Towards Gomorrah, writes:
In the universities, as John R. Searle notes, there are challenges not just to the content of the curriculum but to the very conceptions of rationality, truth, objectivity, and reality that have been taken for granted in higher education, as they have been taken for granted in our civilization at large.
These qualities are rejected even as ideals. This did not occur because a large number of people recently had the insight that these ideals were false or impossible of achievement. This rejection occurred, rather, because the more advanced modern liberals saw that their political and cultural agendas were vulnerable to rational thought.
That was the reason the European fascists rejected rationality as a prop to the corrupt orders just as our American fascists, the New Left, decried objectivity for that reason.
A Washington elitist (I didnt catch his name) speaking at a town hall meeting recently observed that in ten years we will enjoy a six billion dollar budget surplus. His comment was met with raucous laughter from the audience, who apparently are not advocates of the leftist disconnect from rationality. The listening American takes note of hundreds of billions of his, his childrens and his grandchildrens dollars being printed and doled out to select segments of society, placing us into a debt hole from which we can never hope to climb out, and backed by nothing more than the full faith and credit of a corrupt, foundationless government and then listen to one of those elitist leaders attempt to stretch our rational minds to the point of breaking by informing us that things will soon be just fine.
FoxNews has been making a point of unveiling how often Barack Obama uses the phrase Let me make this perfectly clear in his speeches. It appears that he can hardly speak in public without his teleprompter containing at least half a dozen examples of that phrase.
The pundits are theorizing as to why he is so profligate with that expression. I suggest that he is attempting to re-define, through glib speech and practiced serious intonation, the irrational as rational. He is attempting to tell us to ignore that man behind the curtain because words well and emphatically spoken consist of significantly more value and truth.
Many Americans believed that credo prior to November 4th, 2008. Fewer are believing it with each passing day.
Glenn Beck (the modern-day Thomas Paine) showed examples tonight of several town hall meetings that have recently been held across the country. If his clips are representative of those citizen-meetings (and I pray that they are), the outrage is swelling. My husband and I will be attending a town hall meeting with Arlen Specter on the 11th. We hope to be able to speak, but, even if we are not able to do so, I strongly suspect that others will voice the questions we are prepared to ask and they will be equally unwilling to accept talking-points pablum as an acceptable answer.
I was going to sign off here with a Paine quote, but would like instead to repeat one of bettys pearls:
In the end, I continue to believe that what really lies back of all this is a twisted, perverted, implacable hatred of God and man and especially of the natural liberty that God endued in every human soul ...
~ joanie
It isn't atheism, even though it may take that name to hide behind. It serves a master, the very Master of Deception, who seeks the souls of those millions of dead who were allowed to sin because their keepers "loved" them. Even that "love" is a lie, for the poor, contemptuous pets of the elite serve to slave, and provide twisted entertainment for, and be the subjects of a martyrdom as false as the freedom of the masses.
Yes, that is what is coming out of Washington, now--from both sides of the aisle, with little exception.
By their fruits shall ye know them.
Joanie, that “freedom from want” thing always got to me too. When somebody is granted that freedom somebody else always has to pay for it. We’re getting a good dose of that hard lesson right now, and the recipients aren’t “disadvantaged”, they’re friends of Robin Hood.
You and Betty have both honed in on the most important (to us and to them) part of this healthcare plan I think: that Medicare and Social Security are in deep trouble and this plan will go a long way towards solving those problems in that it will ration healthcare for senior citizens, probably more than anyone else, and thereby cause many “premature deaths” for people who would have survived if the American healthcare system stayed intact.
The evil contained in this bill is just a reflection of the hearts of the people who wrote it and support it.
In Washington D.C.?... Well thats a utopian thought..
The only miscreants in D.C. are those that use the words communist or socialist.. or globalist..
They are not run out of town they are marked to be ignored.. or pilloried as loons.. The loons have the most facts.. therefore more of a threat..
Ya gotta love Glen Beck.. he uses the word socialist at every possible occasion.. and if no occasion presents itself .. he creates one.. O'Really is way to careful..
The words communist, socialist and globalist are not hyperbole.. They are progressives with the mask off.. Not all progressives are democrats..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.