Posted on 09/01/2009 6:17:49 AM PDT by Titmouse
Just societies spring from virtuous laws and virtuous citizens; they don't arrive by force of presidential charisma or bureaucratic edict.
History is rife with examples of centrally planned “social justice” — schemes that germinated in the febrile minds of philosophers dreaming of alabaster cities; places where the enlightened few would lead lesser humanity to tables spread with plenty.
Tyrants always promise tables laden with perfectly sliced “pies,” and — from the city walls — views of perfectly leveled playing fields stretching, uninterrupted, to a rose-hued horizon.
Only, those promises are never kept.
Egalitarian dreamers beget boneyards surrounded by steel-reinforced concrete walls: They deliver cobbled streets scarred by tank treads and gray-faced homogeneity — they give us the many managed, ruthlessly, by the few.
There is no pathway to a perfectly just society on this Earth: There are no perfect priests, no perfect churches, and there has never been a state managed by bureaucrats who governed, selflessly, for the greater good.
Those who govern us will always demand their fleets of private jets, their gold-plated health care plans (contrasted with our good enough, “public option”), and those congressional waivers — their “perks” and their passes to the box-seats.
The second great lie is that “greed” is limited to corporatists, capitalists and proponents of free enterprise — while those who govern us are above such mean self-interest and immune from the lures of self-advancement.
(Excerpt) Read more at aspentimes.com ...
We have health care rationing NOW. There aren’t enough kidneys or top-of-the-line surgeons to go around.
Under the current system, which relies primarily on money, if you can’t afford the best in medical care, you can work an extra job, get 7-11 to set up a charity-can for you at the register, or throw a fundraiser.
Under the proposed system, rationing is going to be based on political pull. How the hell do you throw a fundraiser for THAT?
They ran this column? Aren’t they worried that liberals will boycott them? I couldn’t imagine having 2 free liberal dailies, must be a nightmare of a town.
There aren’t enough kidneys precisely because there is no money in it. If people were paid for kidneys, you’d have a massive surplus.
But the government doesn’t want that. Gotta let people die because giving them all kidneys would cost too much.
Absent coercive force (gov’t)
exchanges/trades/commerce does not take place unless it is
MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL to those involved.
Simple. HUGE campaign contributions. Greasing politician hands always works. Always has, always will. The only problem is your efforts will pale in comparison to those leftist elites in Hollywood, so you'll always be last in line.
A contrarian view:
Free guys on Wall Street, bundling bad loans into mortgaged backed securities, making big bucks selling said securities, and wiping out half the equity of the rest of the country.
parsy, who believes in sensible regulations to reel in some of these free men
I’ve found that most of the lemming libs that I talk to have no concept of the following:
Under a price system, the prices act as signals, both to the consumer and to the provider. When demand and prices rise, the consumer is signaled to seek alternatives, while the supplier is signaled to provide more of the in demand resource.
Under a command system, such as is proposed, no signals go either way. Demand becomes infinite for a “free” resource, while the suppliers, being denied the ability to prosper due to that demand, have no incentive to increase supply, and actually have incentive to DECREASE supply, leading inevitably to shortages. With such shortages, the government WILL ration the resource, based on some criteria.
She had pale eyes that looked fishy, cold and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance. And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'
Rand - Atlas Shrugged
“This is the goal of any collectivist - to be able to demand fealty of the masses in order for them to receive the necessities of life.”
That’s the initial goal, before power has been achieved. After that, the real reward is to be able to DENY them the necessities of life.
The point of power is its exercise.
The phrase 'our new, happy life' recurred several times. It had been a favourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty. ... It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.
Yep - you MIGHT be willing to speak out against a government injustice if it only meant losing your OWN health care, but if your child has leukemia, you're going to sit down and shut up.
Thanks for the input - I’m working on my question for the Town Hall. I’ve changed “kidney” and “pull” to emphasize that the issue is that we will be dependent on unnamed and unelected boards to allocate ANY resources. I’m not posting my specific question because I don’t want it Googled.
tell us what happens!
They had people writing their names and towns, NOT the questions, on index cards which were then drawn from a bin. The split was about 90-10 against.
One group of liberals got discouraged by the split and walked out en masse about half an hour into the two-hour meeting.
I ended up sitting in a very small knot of liberals, who were incredibly annoying - they talked trash about every conservative speaker all through the program and tried frequently to interrupt with their own questions. About halfway through I turned around and told them how rude, hateful and vicious they were, and how they should let other people hear. The Queen Bee of the group told the others to ignore me and they just kept on. At the end I told them they were probably the kind of people who talked through every movie they went to as well. The QB got snarky and I ended up calling her a B.
The woman in the row in front of me brought three squirt guns attached to water bottles. Security made her give them up, but didn't remove her. Too bad because she was one of the worst interrupters.
Rep. Wittman told them that they needed to fill out index cards like everyone else had, that the rules had been clearly announced before the event. He committed to voting against HR3200, and any other bill that does not contain a specific exclusion of abortion, and an inclusion of a conscience clause.
Corin, I'm pinging you on this in case you are keeping a list of Virginia Town Halls.
nina, thanks for the pings. But I’m not tracking the Town Halls.
I’m focused on the Governor’s race this week.
Those were her reasons for voting against ObamaCare? Thats it?
I guess it doesn’t sound too bad, considering
His. No, he said the whole bill should be put in the recycler and we need to start over, but he would vote against any bill that did not have those two things. He had a list of thirteen points that need to be in any bill. He had a printout of HR3200 on a stool on stage, it's about a foot high and he said he's read every substantive part and at least skimmed the technical specifications.
Oh. I must be getting really tired.
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