The passage of the Obamacare legislation was nothing less than a declaration of war by the government against the American people. Or at least, by the legislative majority.
It was Monday morning, March 22, 2010 and while driving in to work I came, after some thought, to the conclusion that America's government had, the previous evening, declared war on the American people. It seems that I wasn't alone in this. Later in the day I found that David Horowitz had expressed a similar reaction.
It wasn't just that the House of Representatives had ignored the will of the majority of citizens in voting for the so called "health care overhaul." It was the implications behind the act; that "they know better than we do" and that we have to take our bad tasting medicine because we will like what it does for us in the end. And then there is the other result that waits in the wings; the government takeover of the entire health care industry which will help to create the utopian vision of today's Democrat party – a Stalinesque regime where medical and other needs are restricted based on compliance with the dictates of whoever is in charge. The thought that we could transform a generally free society to this in the just over a half century that I've lived sickens me. Imagine America re-instituting slavery, but this time it is more than 99 percent of the population that is to be enslaved for the pleasure and power of a tiny minority of self-appointed elites. Believe it or not, Representative John Dingell was recorded admitting as much.
It is a sad fact of human nature that there are always those who seek power over others. They go for it by hook or by crook. They use threats, violence, intimidation or promises and con artist tricks. However they can, they make a play for power and when they get it, like Johnny Rocco in the 1948 classic movie Key Largo, they always want more. And that's what this piece of legislation is all about; power over the American people. The rest is all pretenses. Anyone who believes that Pelosi, Reid and Obama care a farthing about helping people might want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge while they are at it.
What is worst about this travesty of the political process is that it occurred as a result of the public failing to recognize a con man until it was too late. They believed that the election process would somehow prevent an internal enemy from being elected and they trusted the press, not believing for an instant that they supported giving power to anti-Americans. They were seduced by falsifications and paid no attention to the obvious flaws that existed. Why weren't that pesky birth certificate or his college records produced? Who cares? All that mattered was electing the nice looking, smooth talking guy who talked about uniting the people, but showed clues to the contrary all along the way. Rush Limbaugh was only one of the people to sniff out the truth. As he stated it , "He has come to divide; he has come to conquer." Rush even raised the question of whether there will be an election in 2010. Something I mentioned in the middle of last year.
What the public failed to recognize was one extremely important fact. That today's Democratic leadership admires dictators like Chavez, Castro and Mao not because of what they have done for their countries, but what they have done to them; they admire and envy the power these people hold. They want that power for themselves and they want it here. They are willing to do just about anything to get it, including wrecking the national economy or worse. The only reason we haven't seen censorship, martial law and the political opposition being confined to gulags is that they don't believe that they can get away with it yet. They will change their minds soon enough, if circumstances seem to make such things possible.
Right now they are preparing for the next stage. Blanket amnesty for illegal aliens as a means of increasing their voter base. Extending the vote to felons, over and above state laws, is already being floated. And don't forget "cap and trade;" They haven't, and it would provide the capstone to regulating the economy and under present regulations make every living, breathing human a pollution source.
One thing we might expect in the near future is a "Reichstag Fire" type incident along with staged attacks on liberal politicians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire This would provide the opportunity for assassinations of leading conservatives and set the stage for suspension of the constitution and / or martial law. It might also set the stage for civil war, as there will likely be many members of the military who would not go along with it. Another possible excuse would be manufactured hyper-inflation; another topic I discussed previously here and here .
I hope and pray every day that events of this type do not occur. However, what is most important to remember is that people who care more about power than anything else will do anything to get it and to keep it. The future of America may rest in God's hands from now on, and may God protect us from our own foolishness. The results of the 2008 elections prove that while we don't deserve it, it is certainly something we desperately need.
Rush even raised the question of whether there will be an election in 2010. Something I mentioned in the middle of last year.
Riiiight…Obama is going to cancel the elections. Not sure I’d use that laughable and hysterical prediction as a way of bolstering Rush’s credibility. Any sign it’s gonna happen yet?
It wasn’t just that the House of Representatives had ignored the will of the majority of citizens in voting for the so called “health care overhaul.”
You guys sure seem fixated on polls lately. Didn’t a lot of you folks laud Bush for disregarding polling and public opinion when he pursued the surge in Iraq?
Question: If, several days or weeks from now, Health Care Reform is polling pretty well, will you apologize and admit Obama was right all along in knowing the heart of the American public?
Oz
Bailout (read: nationalization) of banks and the auto-industry; creepy cult-of-personality of Obama in schools;
an administration with connections to organizations like ACORN; and now a government reform (in the name of “health-care”)– not to mention the “cap and trade” legistlation which would enable the UN to impose a tax on the American people.
All this would read like a cheap spy novel, but now, it is REAL. And so the suppositions of suspending elections etc. don’t see all that far-fetched. May God help us!
Regarding your question, “If, several days or weeks from now, Health Care Reform is polling pretty well, will you apologize and admit Obama was right all along in knowing the heart of the American public?”
I suspect it will poll better. It’s a bit like asking someone who just found out they have cancer if they are hoping for the best. As in a few days or weeks, as you say, Democrats wield the same power they have today, and as health care reform is the law of the land (as cancerous as we recognize it is), while some will keep up the fight, many people who were against this “cancer” will suddenly be hoping for the best, which I’m certain will be the attitude that will be spun by pollsters as positive support for health care. Obama will have been proven right, as you say.
But this is what Obama knew. All that was important was getting the bill passed, even though he knew the only bipartisan agreement was among those who opposed it, just like the majority of the American people. The lack of popular support is why there had to be backroom deals and so much arm twisting.
I have a better question for you: If in a few days or weeks, with virtually none of the important provisions of the bill affecting anyone, and with group health plans still nine months from being renewed and no one seeing premium increases, if polls show people are more favorable to the plan, to what would you attribute it other than “hope” that the plan will end up being good for them when it kicks in?
I strongly oppose the idea of two thugs mugging me in a dark alley, but once the inevitability of the situation is upon me, the question becomes moot. My attention has changed to hoping for the best outcome under the circumstances. It’s just natural, and the master manipulator Obama knew it. All he had to do was mug us, which is just what happened. The American people were taken by force.
Regarding your comparison to the the polling on the Iraq surge, it’s always hard for war to poll well, as even when it works well, there is loss of life. These little “failures,” if you will, are a reality of war. Successful campaigns mean our people die. Obama, now knowing the surge worked, maintains he would have voted against it anyway, which tells you all you need to know about how some people poll regarding such matters.
From a practical standpoint, however, our generals do a good job of putting battle plans together, and they have the track record to prove it. Congress and federal bureaucrats in charge of massive entitlement programs do not, however – something you surely recognize. In essence, Democrats have been arguing that their battle plan will we be successful, and there will be no casualties (we’ll actually reduce the deficit, health care will be cheaper and better).
But the majority of the people have lots of good reason to believe health care reform as passed won’t work, and they know the consequences. Considering the government’s record of managing huge entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare (together about 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities), they have good reason to believe that health care, which will be even bigger, will join SS and Medicare as yet another unsustainable venture.
This is particularly so, as it is clear to even the biggest math dummy that the raid on Medicare, carving out the doc fix, having to collect for 10 years to provide six years of benefits identifies it as a fiscal loser right out of the gate, something anyone with sense knows is the wrong thing at the wrong time considering the impossible levels of debt and deficits we now face.
But again, as of now it is law, and for a segment of the population, that means resignation and hoping for the best. The irony is that Obama campaigned on “hope,” and after this cram-down, to a lot of people it’s starting to look like “hope” is about all we can do.
You guys sure seem fixated on polls lately. Didn’t a lot of you folks laud Bush for disregarding polling and public opinion when he pursued the surge in Iraq?
Military strategic policy during wartime shouldn’t be subject to the whims of public opinion (or politicians, for that matter). Once you’ve committed to executing a war you shouldn’t turn to laypeople to administer the strategy that military leaders employ to pursue their objectives. If you intend to take public opinion into consideration when contemplating war policy, it should be when deciding whether to go to war in the first place (which, whether you regard an “authorization to use force” a war declaration or not, congress voted for it). The analogy is, with credit to Rahm Emmanuel, f-ing retarded. You do bring up a good point though: even if this bill had 99% public support it wouldn’t matter. It is unconstitutional and immoral. So public opinion is rather irrelevant.
Patrick says,
Public opinion is rather irrelevant.
On that we largely agree. Public opinion is fickle and often uninformed, particularly with regard to complex issues such as health care policy. It is blowing in the wind. I rarely use it to support any of my positions. I just find it laughable when the IC types claim that Obama has shoved something down America’s throat. Half the country thinks otherwise. You guys confuse your own level of (misguided) anger with broad support for your position.
Oz
Nick asks:
I have a better question for you: If in a few days or weeks, with virtually none of the important provisions of the bill affecting anyone, and with group health plans still nine months from being renewed and no one seeing premium increases, if polls show people are more favorable to the plan, to what would you attribute it other than “hope” that the plan will end up being good for them when it kicks in?
As I said in my previous post, I attribute shifts in opinion polls to a whole range of irrelevant causes – hope, propaganda, misunderstanding, mob mentality, group process, good advertising, and so on. I could give a sh*t less, usually, what public opinion polls say. But in recent posts here, as in the rest of the right wing bloviosphere, there seems to be a meme that the Democrats have somehow thwarted the will of the American people. I don’t see it. The Dems just thwarted you guys, and you are not isomorphic with America.
Oz
I just find it laughable when the IC types claim that Obama has shoved something down America’s throat. Half the country thinks otherwise. You guys confuse your own level of (misguided) anger with broad support for your position.
Recent polling data has somewhere between 60% and as high as 75% of the public opposed to the health care legislation that just passed (whereas support for generic, undefined “health care reform” is higher). The numbers are breaking down almost identically to the way they did in 1993 when HillaryCare was shelved. It’s not inaccurate to say that the health care legislation passed by congres was “shoved down America’s throat”, it’s just not the most important reason to oppose it. As I said, if the legislation had unanimous public support it wouldn’t change the quality of the bill. It does make for a convenient argument for politicians and those in the business of public persuasion though.
Ozzie
It’s important to note that a number of factors go into gauging public support, not the least of which is that despite a 40-seat advantage, health care reform was passed by just seven votes, and the arm twisting and backroom dealings the only reason those seven votes were there.
The health care bill, by all rights, died, yet lives. It is the legislative equivalent of a zombie. The bill is being called historic, but it’s historic more for its departure from a process that in the end usually squeezes out cheap, personal-agenda politics. It is the rape of the process that has as much to do with the opposition outrage as the bill itself.
Health care reform didn’t have the public support needed for legislation this big (even if we were in good economic times and not facing life-choking deficits), nor the support in Congress (never has a bill this large passed without bipartisan support; in this case the bipartisan agreement was against, and that support constituted a majority minus the vote manipulation and backroom dealing). The bill also did not meet the budget-neutral threshold set, at least not without turning 10 years of taxing into just six years of benefits, shifting a couple of billion in doctor subsidies to a separate bill, and a $500 billion theft from Medicare.
It all smells to high heaven, but in the end, the vote is what counts, right?
If you are a bright fellow, you can see the significance of the circumstances regarding the way this bill and the process was manipulated. Perhaps you are a blind and at-all-costs Obama follower, in which case there is no bitter aftertaste, because the ends justify the means. And by ends, I mean the vote, not the cost/benefit ratio of our new health care. Come back in 10 years and tell me how that hope and change is working out for you, your family and friends. Should be just as solvent as Social Security, I’d guess.
The merits of the bill aside, the political bar has been lowered by Mr. Obama, something his joking and laughing in public about the foolishness of his opponents (American people and presumably the 1/6th of House Democrats that voted with those people and the Republicans) cements it.
We’re used to politicians pushing for their agendas, and you have to admire that, but there isn’t any excuse for the leader of our country behaving as a childish agitator, arrogantly dismissive of millions of the people he represents.
A uniting leader would be humble, steadfastly maintaining that he did what he thought was best, and ask for understanding or the benefit of the doubt from those people who believed there were better, more affordable solutions.
And they are not unreasonable people. This “historic” event represents the greatest economic power shift and spending commitment the country has ever seen, coming at a time when economic collapse is a real possibility and deficits have passed the melting point. Add to that the very reasonable concern that the government will run health care no better than in runs Social Security and Medicare – together $100 trillion in the hole as I write this.
These are real people with real concerns, but Obama’s arrogance makes it clear that they are not his people. They are to be laughed at, and this week he invited a crowd of his supporters to laugh along with him. His aim is clear: Divide.
He looked around the ceiling of the room, mockingly asking “where is the Armageddon?” and issued a threat and dare to anyone who would challenge him on health care now that it has passed.
Would you say divider or uniter, Ozzie? What is the goal of a president who speaks like this following something his people were so torn apart on?
Patrick says:
Recent polling data has somewhere between 60% and as high as 75% of the public opposed to the health care legislation that just passed (whereas support for generic, undefined “health care reform” is higher).
Well I dunno Patrick, it seems like you are quoting a major outlier figure there. These are a few of the things I was thinking about:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/in-polls-much-opposition-to-health-care.html
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/03/are-democrats-better-off-for-having.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-23-health-poll-favorable_N.htm
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/rising_tide_for_hcr_especially.php
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/29/rel6a.pdf
Plus, my recollection is that when you poll the individual elements of the current HCR, they get pretty high marks. I’m not convinced most people even know much about what’s in it, or the logic behind its elements.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying HCR is popular, because it’s not. I’m just saying the country is – once again – pretty evenly split. And like you, I don’t give a hoot about the opinion polls anyway. It will either turn out to be the right thing to do, or it won’t. We’ll see.
Oz
Nick sez:
If you are a bright fellow, you can see the significance of the circumstances regarding the way this bill and the process was manipulated. Perhaps you are a blind and at-all-costs Obama follower, in which case there is no bitter aftertaste, because the ends justify the means.
Well, that’s all well and good, I know that is the right’s mantra, that somehow there was some type of outrageous manipulation of our pristine legislative system.
I’m almost too bored to trot out the many, many rejoinders – about the way the Republicans basically refused to engage in governing, leaving the Dems no option but party line votes; and how the supposedly horrifying and unprecedented procedural perversions are really pretty common practice, and so on, round and round we go.
But this one is a real howler, Nick:
These are real people with real concerns, but Obama’s arrogance makes it clear that they are not his people. They are to be laughed at, and this week he invited a crowd of his supporters to laugh along with him. His aim is clear: Divide.
He looked around the ceiling of the room, mockingly asking “where is the Armageddon?” and issued a threat and dare to anyone who would challenge him on health care now that it has passed.
Would you say divider or uniter, Ozzie? What is the goal of a president who speaks like this following something his people were so torn apart on?
Oh my heavens, Nick. A President becomes a little snarky about the party that ferociously opposes him, tooth and nail? Unprecedented! Get me some smelling salts!
Compare Obama’s moment of mildly sarcastic levity with the cesspool of sickening accusations that have been leveled against him in the last couple of years. Foreigner! Muslim! Terrorist! Traitor! Fascist! Communist!
I think he still looks pretty statesmanlike, at least in comparison. He has shown quite remarkable restraint, from my perspective. It’s hard to see why HE is the one being tarred as ‘divisive’.
Oz
Ozzie
You compare President Obama to opponents you identify as dwellers of a sickening cesspool, and the best you can say about Obama is that “he still looks pretty statesmanlike?”
“Pretty statesmanlike” doesn’t cut it when you are the president of the United States.
Obama is the president of the United States. What he says and how he behaves is compared to presidents – no one less. He doesn’t have the luxury of being undignified in victory (or defeat, for that matter).
President Obama has had a year to scrub the street organizer off himself. There just isn’t any excuse.
Nick, clearly statesmanship is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps there is a case to be made that Obama has behaved in a particularly divisive or arrogant manner as President, compared to other Presidents, but suffice it to say I’m unconvinced by the innocuous little barb you quote.
Personally, I think there’s a lot of this going on here:
http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/201003100003
It was such a window into Obama’s arrogant SOUL when he put his feet on the desk. Until, of course, it turns out that at least 3 previous presidents, including Bush, were photographed doing the same thing. You guys are just obsessively attributing negative traits to underlie everything the guy does. How about even making a pretense of fairness once in a while?
Oz
An unreported comment from a low-level former Bush administration official as interpreted by Soros-funded, MoveOn-affiliated Media Matters? Well, case closed. Those conservatives are just hate-filled racists!
Of course, one *could* point to the 6 years of total vilification of George W. Bush personally, his administration generally, and the Republican party as a whole by Code Pink, MoveOn.org, HuffPo and DailyKos, with the blessing of Democratic party leadership (indicated by their presence at events like YearlyKos and acceptance of hundreds of millions of campaign dollars from MoveOn.org fundraising efforts), run on primetime television by all three major news networks, as well as the major cable news networks, major national print media such as New York Times, Washington Post and Time magazine, and even in fiction, going as far as depicting his assassination in film while he was still in office. How about even making a pretense of fairness once in a while?
Your wish is my command, Patrick! I whole-heartedly condemn all vicious, toxic rhetoric aimed at our elected officials, from both the Left and the Right.
I am from (vaguely) the Left, and I believe that there are elements on the Left who behave childishly, frivolously, and unfairly. Moveon.org is often quite creepy. Remember when they criticized Petraeus as ‘General Betray-us’? Contemptible. Sickening.
In fact, I’ve said this same thing over and over. It’s kinda my big theme, really. I’m pretty sure I’ve surpassed the low bar of exhibiting at least a ‘pretense’ of fairness, on many occasions. I’ve seen little reciprocity. (Some from Dr. Jackson, to be fair).
OK, your turn. Will you admit there is a lot of toxic, destructive crap coming from the Right?
Oz
Your “big theme” is to denounce extremists on the left, while simultaneously espousing all of their ideology, then insist that “we” do the same for unnamed “extremists” on the right (such as a low-level Bush administration appointee who said Obama was arrogant), as if there were some mainstream right-wing analog to the kooks on the left who are embraced by major party leaders. You don’t find Republican party leaders and presidential candidates at, say, an anarcho-capitalist convention that supports dissolving the government and instituting private courts and police (I’m not aware of any such convention, but let’s pretend for the sake of argument that there were), whereas you have the DNC chairman and a former Democratic president attending the YearlKos netroots convention and self-identified Marxist social justice activists holding special advisor positions in the current White House. I’m not going to indulge your idiocy and pretend like it’s civil reciprocity. The point was, your moral outrage at a low-level DOT appointee calling the current president arrogant for putting his shoes up on a desk and using it as an example of crazy right-wingers tarring the president and ascribing to him evil intentions rings comically hollow considering the treatment the ostensibly right-wing previous president received on a daily basis, not from fringe commentators on the far-left or administrative assistants in the Clinton administration, but from a nearly-unanimous choir of mainstream TV and print media. Your outrage now, 2 years after the fact, seems a bit opportunistic.
Ozzie
Sounds like you recognize some of what I’m saying. While there may be some satisfaction amongst those on the left to shout “hell, yeah,” when Obama behaves this way, there also has to be a little something among the thinking members of the left that there’s just something undignified about it. There’s also something a little dangerous about it, and it only serves to drive wedges between us – and it can come from no higher source than the president.
When a president disagrees with such a large number of the people he represents, he has to “respectfully” disagree. There’s nothing respectful about cracking jokes about “all them losers” who opposed him.
No matter what we might argue, we surely can agree they were not statements meant to heal wounds. And since Obama’s to smart a guy to not realize what he was saying, then just what was the intent?
“…they know better than we do” and that we have to take our bad tasting medicine because we will like what it does for us in the end”. Simply a demonstration of the undemocratic nature of the Democrat Party and most of liberalism. I live in California and we try to use initiatives to democratically make changes to our state laws and government. The liberal courts will undemocratically strike them down or the Democrat controlled legislature will try to render them impotent with nullifying legislation. Prop. 187 which prohibited illegal residents to seek publicly financed services. It was struck down by the courts after Californians voted to implement it in 1987.
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