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Losing In Fall OK With Democrats If It Means They Win Health Care
Investors.com ^ | March 5, 2010 | MARK STEYN

Posted on 03/05/2010 5:14:05 PM PST by Kaslin

So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that "now is the hour when we must seize the moment," the same moment he's been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let "health" "care" "reform" stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it's worth it. Big time. I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture.

It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally "conservative" parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect. (Let's not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a "conservative.") The result is a kind of two-party one-party state:

Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic.

Less than three months ago, they were stunned at the way the Democrats managed to get 60 senators to vote for the health bill.

Then Scott Brown took them back down to 59, and Republicans were again stunned to find the Dems talking about ramming this thing into law through the parliamentary device of "reconciliation."

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; 666; bhohealthcare; healthcare; marksteyn; obama; obamacare; pelosi; reid; servitude; steyn; treason
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To: okie01
After all, if no funds are appropriated for any activities associated with Obamacare, how are they going to set up the framework?

As long as I can remember, every time Republicans just try to reduce the rate of growth of something as innocuous as the school lunch program, they get a press flogging until they relent.

Not funding healthcare after it was passed, and shortly after they get a small majority would be brutal.

This must be stopped any way possible...because getting rid of it will be impossible.

41 posted on 03/05/2010 6:05:39 PM PST by Tex-Con-Man
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To: okie01
If I understand the timeline benefits don't really start until 2013-14. So yes some of the bill could be emasculated if the Rep get congress and the White House. You starve it of funds. If you don't fund the bureaucracies the wither on the vine.
42 posted on 03/05/2010 6:05:42 PM PST by WILLIALAL
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To: Kaslin
Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic.

Add to that some prominent Republicans' support for Amnesty and the Republican Party would be reduced to a local-only fringe group.

43 posted on 03/05/2010 6:19:13 PM PST by arthurus ("If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, don't shoot an abortionist." -Ann C.)
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To: Northern Yankee

I agree and who was the other one?


44 posted on 03/05/2010 6:23:32 PM PST by hstacey (An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure...)
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To: spectre
Talk about falling on their sword and committing Obamacide. Idiots.

I am going to hold the democrats at the local level accountable, as well. They didn't have anything to do with the health care debacle? Tough...you're a democrat, and you have to go. I will vote them ALL out on Election Day...even the dogcatcher. Out.

45 posted on 03/05/2010 6:25:17 PM PST by who knows what evil? (G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)
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To: Gritty
i’ll be long dead before the total demise occurs, i’m almost 73 now!
46 posted on 03/05/2010 6:25:47 PM PST by dalereed
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To: politicianslie

November could be the line in the sand, things don’t make a radical change after November elections, next stop will be the streets and it won;t be pretty


47 posted on 03/05/2010 6:26:08 PM PST by reefdiver ("Let His day's be few And another takes His office")
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To: A_Former_Democrat
Then repeal it. In full.

It will be all but impossible to repeal.

48 posted on 03/05/2010 6:27:24 PM PST by Junior_G (Funny how liberals' love affair with Muslims began on 9/11)
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To: okie01
Mitch McConnell's promise that a GOP majority would repeal Obamacare if it passed into law sounded pretty straightforward to me.

McConnell knows this is an empty promise. Why didn't the GOP repeal Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or all the other frickin' welfare programs when they had the chance? Heck, the GOP expanded Medicare when they had power.

This piece is so dead on it isn't even funny. NONE of the Great Society or New Deal programs were EVER repealed by any politician purporting to be "conservative." If 0bamacare passes, it will never die either.

Maybe, just maybe, they've learned their lesson...

The Bunning saga ended a only a few days ago.

49 posted on 03/05/2010 6:31:00 PM PST by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: jveritas

Mark Steyn, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson are all masters of he written word.

I don’t see that Mark Steyn is confused at all.


50 posted on 03/05/2010 6:34:49 PM PST by listenhillary (the only reason government wants to be our provider is so it may become our master)
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To: freekitty
Does anyone remember the story in the U.K. with the picture of the guy with the broken arm?

He couldn't see a doc before the bones threaded together incorrectly. Then, I think they declined him treatment because he smoked.

I'd love to find that photo again and send it anonymously to certain neighborhoods I suspect support the health”care” bill.

51 posted on 03/05/2010 6:37:46 PM PST by Mortrey (Impeach President Soros)
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To: pnh102
Why didn't the GOP repeal Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or all the other frickin' welfare programs when they had the chance?

We weren't 12 trillion dollars in debt and running a deficit that is equal to one and three quarters of our annual tax receipts. The Republicans have stood strong since the Obama election. This health care has kept DC tied up for eight months.

52 posted on 03/05/2010 6:39:14 PM PST by listenhillary (the only reason government wants to be our provider is so it may become our master)
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To: Kaslin
Somewhere in America in 2020 ...

"Number 45918721-H! The Dr. will see you now!"


53 posted on 03/05/2010 6:43:02 PM PST by CapnJack
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To: politicianslie

REVOLUCION if you wear a wide hat...


54 posted on 03/05/2010 6:45:25 PM PST by rahbert (Round up the color experts!)
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To: pnh102
NONE of the Great Society or New Deal programs were EVER repealed by any politician purporting to be "conservative."

Uh, do you recall when it was that a GOP majority had their first chance to repeal any of that crap?

It wasn't until 1995, as I recall. By which time these programs had been in place for thirty to sixty years.

55 posted on 03/05/2010 6:53:18 PM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: listenhillary
The Republicans have stood strong since the Obama election.

Sorry, but if recent history has taught us anything it is that the GOP only talks the conservative talk when it is out of power. When it takes power it acts like the Democrat lite party.

56 posted on 03/05/2010 7:01:51 PM PST by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: okie01
Uh, do you recall when it was that a GOP majority had their first chance to repeal any of that crap?

It wasn't until 1995, as I recall. By which time these programs had been in place for thirty to sixty years.

And from 2001 to 2007 the GOP had control of Congress and the presidency. During that time, they continued the never-ending expansion of government, spending and borrowing.

57 posted on 03/05/2010 7:03:55 PM PST by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: Traveler59

A Republican congress could refuse to fund it but how would that stop the new taxes, the cuts in Medicare, the bankrupting of America?

I think our best chance is to pound it into American’s thick skulls that these taxes are coming now, in the worst economy conceivable. Taxes that will kill jobs now, with 17% unemployment and rising. These cuts are coming to seniors now after they’ve been told no cost of living increases for what, three years?

Make these Democrats defend those votes, the money votes, separately and in addition to the healthcare piece.


58 posted on 03/05/2010 7:06:50 PM PST by Kenny
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To: Kaslin
Steyn is depressingly right about this. We've gone too far down the road to Hell the left has paved with their socialist intentions.

There are maybe a dozen or so conservatives who would try to stop it, but the rest are rinos and kinder, gentler "conservatives" who are hell bent to show the left they are even better liberals than the liberals so that maybe the left will love them.

Truth is, it was over when FDR passed all his anti-Constitutional BS that no one, no one has ever been able to undo. Revolution or WWIII are much more likely ways back to the limited government Republic than the GOP rolling back the great society. They helped the libbies pave this road we're on and they won't be digging it up.

59 posted on 03/05/2010 7:14:36 PM PST by GBA
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To: HiTech RedNeck
However a Pub congress could refuse to keep funding it.

For three years? With Zeroman and what's left of the democrat party whining, bitching and moaning and the media covering it all by gleefully portraying the republicans as evil, heartless and cruel?

Frankly, I don't have faith the republicans and RINO's could stand up to the "pressure". Look how they dithered and blathered and wasted away their own solid majorities by refusing to really lead. That's what lead to the ouster in 2006 and 2008. IMO.

Here we have the communist wolves knocking our door down and the equivalent of the Keystone Cops as our so-called champions.

60 posted on 03/05/2010 7:24:09 PM PST by prairiebreeze (Prayers for the Ft. Hood families, victims and soldiers.)
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