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Mark Steyn: Obamacare worth the price to Democrats
The Orange County Register ^ | March 5, 2010 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 03/06/2010 4:19:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

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."(continued)

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


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2010; bho44; congress; democrats; healthcare; healthcontrol; marksteyn; obama; obamacare; socializedmedicine; steyn
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Too true.
1 posted on 03/06/2010 4:19:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
...a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement...

It seems Mark Steyn is much more sanguine about ObamaCare than I am.

2 posted on 03/06/2010 4:23:18 PM PST by Aevery_Freeman (Don't just pick between Bull Sh*t and Horse Sh*t, clean out the stable!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
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 seems to me that we already have this leftist political culture even without the government health system.

3 posted on 03/06/2010 4:23:49 PM PST by thulldud (Is it "alter or abolish" time yet?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yeah, it’s never been about reforming healthcare but about Progressives seizing control of this Republic.


4 posted on 03/06/2010 4:24:12 PM PST by antidemoncrat
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Because government health care is not about health care, it's about government. Once you look at it that way, what the Dems are doing makes perfect sense. For them.

True indeed!

5 posted on 03/06/2010 4:24:15 PM PST by CedarDave (Hey Mitt, how's that no-apology book tour going? Any other than ivy-tower elites energized yet?)
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To: Aevery_Freeman

LOL


6 posted on 03/06/2010 4:24:50 PM PST by exnavy (May the Lord grant our troops protection and endurance.)
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To: antidemoncrat

Yeah, it’s never been about reforming healthcare but about Progressives seizing control of this Republic.
:::::

Exactly.


7 posted on 03/06/2010 4:25:45 PM PST by EagleUSA
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is the single most important article ever posted in Free Republic... or anywhere else.

Unfortunately, I fear that it will remain so... that what it predicts will come to pass.


8 posted on 03/06/2010 4:28:03 PM PST by samtheman
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Click Here

9 posted on 03/06/2010 4:38:39 PM PST by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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"And those are NOT my fingerprints all over the congressional bill.
I merely facilitated discussion between opposing parties."

10 posted on 03/06/2010 4:43:36 PM PST by syriacus (If ALL religions are equal, why go halfway around the world to learn to practice a different one?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yesterday I went off on Mark and called him an idiot. Well I was the ‘idiot’ because, what Mark describes in this article is Australia.

There is no such thing as a “Conservative” party in a socialist country.

Mark, you nailed it and I apologize. I just hope that ALL of America realizes what they have to lose.


11 posted on 03/06/2010 4:45:40 PM PST by BornToBeAmerican (“If you think education is expensive try ignorance.”)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I absolutely believe that RAT leaders are willing to pay *any* price (in the short/medium term,at least) to get HusseinCare.Particularly if it's those other than they themselves who are tossed out.Bella Pelosi knows she's got a House gig for as long as she wants it.And I'll wager all I have that Dirty Harry has been promised (*secretly* promised) something *very* sweet by Hussein for when he's tossed out on his hindquarters in November.

I just pray that the Republicans can hold them off until January of next year when there'll be nothing to worry about.

12 posted on 03/06/2010 4:47:44 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Host The Beer Summit-->Win The Nobel Peace Prize!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This happened in Hawaii. Even though we have a Republican Governor, she can hardly get anything done or passed as the whole rest of Hawaii’s legislature is pure left wing zombie’s. I mean from the two Senators to the House members down to the state house and senate. All democrats. I laugh when someone on Freepers says ,be sure to call your representative and let them know how you feel. I might just as well go out and talk to my concrete fence. They rule and don’t give a crap what we the people want or feel.


13 posted on 03/06/2010 4:52:01 PM PST by fish hawk
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To: Gay State Conservative
I just pray that the Republicans can hold them off until January of next year when there'll be nothing to worry about.

There will always be something to worry about until the Complicit Media Problem is addressed.

By any means necessary.

14 posted on 03/06/2010 4:54:43 PM PST by Gorzaloon (GET him AWAY from the CAMERA!! They are all figuring it out!!!)
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To: antidemoncrat
"It has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory."

-- George Will

15 posted on 03/06/2010 5:01:29 PM PST by Iron Munro (God is great, Beer is good, People are crazy)
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To: samtheman

I agree. The two-party one-party state is the evil here. The line about the Dems betting on the Reps to not have a backbone rings a little too true.

Steyn’s always good - this is inspired.


16 posted on 03/06/2010 5:03:52 PM PST by ProfoundMan (Time to finish the Reagan Revolution! - RightyPics.com)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
άποθανεΐν θέλω.
17 posted on 03/06/2010 5:07:35 PM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (A gentleman in the drawing room; a rapist in the boudoir.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

One way that Progressive Democrats have managed to keep alive their dead, defeated,

bankrupting theories on issues like so-called health care is by perverting the

definition of very basic terms.

The word “right” is one of the most glaring examples of a definition that’s been

distorted by the intellectual house-of-horrors mirror that is leftist theory.

Every American has the “right” to health care they argue.

They’re right. Every American does have a right to health care. In fact, they have

that “right” right now. They have the right to buy insurance. They have the right

to not buy insurance. They have the right to pay out of pocket. They have the

right get a second opinion. They have the right to rub a little dirt on it and suck

it up. They have a right to help out a friend in need. These are individual rights.

America is set upon individual rights.

What they don’t have is the “right” to health care in the perverted leftist sense

of the word.

A “right,” in the traditional American lexicon laid out by the likes of Thomas

Jefferson, is something that exists by virtue of our humanity. It is “inalienable”

and we are endowed with these rights by our creator. No government or

institution has the power to take away these rights. You exist, therefore these

rights exist.

In the leftist sense of the word, though, a “right” is something very different. In

fact, it’s not a “right” at all: it’s a handout provided to you by government, often

at exorbitant costs to society.

“I have the ‘right’ to health care!” the leftists demand angrily. “Therefore, the

government must provide it for me!” This is where they veer off course. You

do not have a ‘right to healthcare provided by government’. Or a house, or a

college degree or education, or car loan or food etc, etc, etc.

B-b-b-b-b-but!,” scream the leftists. “Insurance companies can already deny you

health care.”

No, they can’t. Insurance companies are certainly part of the problem. We’ve

grown to depend on them too much and on ourselves too little. The system does

need to be fixed.

But insurance companies cannot deny you the inalienable ”right” to health care.

They do not have that power. They can only choose not to pay for certain

procedures. You can still find another insurance company, seek help in a

different state, find a charitable doctor to pay for it, benefit from a fundraiser

or, worst-case scenario, benefit from the generosity of a well-funded, for-profit

private health care institution.

After all, you still have the “right” to find that care. Even in a worst-case

scenario in the current system, you only need the means.

But when government monopolizes the system, when government first decides

what kind of care you’ll get, and when government next decides if they’ll even

pay for it, your right to health care no longer exists


18 posted on 03/06/2010 5:09:18 PM PST by Freddd (CNN is down to Three Hundred Thousand viewers. But they worked for it.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I believe that Obamacare is first and foremost about ObamaEgo. He wants to go down in history as the person who did what no one else could: create a “universal” [read socialist] health care system. May even be a grudgefest with the Clintons.

Whatever, anything else is secondary to his ego. JMO.


19 posted on 03/06/2010 5:17:10 PM PST by freespirited (We're not the Party of No. We're the Party of HELL NO!!!)
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To: Gorzaloon

All Republicans are in trouble and will be targets for removal if the party doesn’t mobilize and confront the uncomfortable reality that business as usual is history.


20 posted on 03/06/2010 5:18:17 PM PST by x_plus_one (Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it.)
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