Mighty Missouri

We've got the Arch.  And the St. Louis Cardinals.   And I guess Branson now.  That's about all people on the Left Coasts knew about Missouri if they knew that much

Well they know something else now.  They know we REALLY don't think the Federal Government has any business forcing us to buy a product (or pay a fine) just to exist as an American.

They know it 71%-29%. 

Our Capitol City was named after Thomas Jefferson.  Lewis and Clark embarked from here to discover points beyond without any health insurance at all.  Or food stamps.  They didn't have to license their boat or even pay taxes on it every year.  They carried guns with them and used them without a permit.  Harry Truman, for whom the buck stopped ... from here.  A place called "Independence".  We also have towns named "Useful" and "Freedom" and "Liberty".

Now of course the left pundits will tell you that voters were confused, or that the Dems weren't motivated to vote on it, that it doesn't really represent what the people want ... or, if you're that dude from California, that it doesn't matter because the Federal Government can pretty much do whatever it wants.  (hence 71%-29% is meaningless but Obama's  52.5%-47.5% win was a "landslide" and a mandate for "Change").

Now a lot of people think the Tea Party is about a lot of stuff that it's not about.   They've been fed the lines over and over that it's about racism, hating a black president, theocracy, ignorance, uneducated people who don't know what's good for them, people duped by big business and moneyed interests ... "astroturf".

None of that.  This is what it's about at its core.  What Congressman Stark said.  The current powers that be -- and this has been building the whole 20th century ... think that central planning is the answer.   That We the People should be subjected by law to "expert" opinion.   There are so many reasons this is wrong that one can't begin to cover it in a blog post.  I'd start by reading Bastiat and Hayek if you really want to understand what made America different, and why that's a good thing.

I hope people in the other 17 states that have similar initiatives to Missouri Proposition C will take heart.   The so-called "supremacy" clause aside, this sends a powerful message to Washington.  And what Congress passes, Congress can repeal.   They are subject to the Constitution and to us, not us to them and just screw the Constitution because it means whatever they need it to mean today to enact their agenda.

It's Official! Rights Come From the Government!

Senator Tom Harkin:

[..] What this bill does is, we finally take that step.  As our leader said, earlier, we take that step from health care as a privilege to health care as an inalienable right of every single American citizen.

 As I've said before, this bill is not complete. I've used the analogy of a starter home on which we can add additions and enhancements as we go into the future. But like every right that we've ever passed for the American people, we revisit it later on to enhance and build on those rights. And we will do that here surely, we will enhance and build on this. But we have made that first and most important step to make it a right rather than a privilege.

Inalienable Rights.

There you have it. Rights now come from the government.   Not self-evidently endowed to us and merely recognized and protected by the government.  "We", (congress) pass rights for the American people.

The Constitution does not matter.  As I've said before, and as Harkin confirms here, it doesn't matter what's in the bill that's being passed today.  It's a foot in the door.  And they know it.

Social Security ... expanded and "enhanced" into bankruptcy.  Medicare, expanded and "enhanced" into bankruptcy.  We've been talking about it for decades now, and pushing the inevitible as far into the future as we can, when it will be catastrphic, but not while I'm running for office.  Fannie.  Freddie.  Guaranteed loans.  Expanded and "enhanced" until people who couldn't afford homes began to default on them in droves.

And we want to start a brand new, huge Federal Entitlement.  Insanity.

Time to Whip out the Clue Bat

After watching this lady, who (as Morgan said) nailed it, a youtube link to this woman came up, and I watched it.

She asks if the congressman really thought that a public option was the only way we can "keep these insurance companies honest".

The congressman answers

I think first of all we have to end the monopoly that the insurance companies have ... in our country.

Stop right there. I hear this all the time. But look ... insurance companies is plural. It's plural to the tune of 1,300 companies. How, I ask, does that qualify as a "monopoly"? Mono -- one. 1,300. "Why do you keep using that word? I do not think it means what you think it means." So that's a straw man. One that people evidently buy, though.

I want doctors, nurses, and patients making medical decisions, not insurance companies.

Ok, nice thought. That sounds great. Hold that thought.

Insurance companies attempt to ration care every day if you will, by denying claims people otherwise should be covered for.

Well ... first of all, technically, no. They are denying payment for certain medical procedures. If you can come up with the money, or if you have enough family and friends to take up a collection to help you pay for it ... you can go get it done. And whether or not that procedure should be paid for is subjective and probably based on the contract you have with your insurance company. And governments, when they get involved in health insurance and health care, tend to forbid you from paying for health care yourself. It makes them look bad, and ultimately, these people are really about deciding what's "fair". To them, it's not "fair" that you have more money.

We're gonna change that system, and we're gonna, by creating this health insurance exchange, we're gonna give consumers much more power and choice in choosing their health care plans, and again, providing transparency and competition in the process, taking away that monopoly power from insurance companies.

There's that word again.

How is that going to work?

How about this? Repeal the laws that don't allow people to buy insurance across state lines so that these insurance 1,300 companies actually have to compete with each other. I heard a lady from California say she has a choice of 6 insurance companies due to laws restricting competition.

A "public option" merely adds a government, "Post Office" version of a health insurance company, and it involves government in something it should not be involved in. As I've said before, it is an inherent conflict of interest when a competitor makes and enforces the rules. And in the end, just like a private insurance company, the Government Option will have to decide which claims to pay and which ones not to. Let me repeat that. Government. Making. Decisions. How's that Cash for Clunkers money comin' out? Good damned thing that's not heart surgery they're waiting on.

If a private insurance company behaves unfairly and it has to compete with other insurance companies, people will stop using that insurance company. It has something to lose. Government has nothing to lose. To "fix" problems it will simply demand more and more taxpayer money, while politicians add layer upon layer of tangled laws so that they can say they're "doing something". And all an insurance exchange does is add a government middle man demanding payment for whatever it deems should be provided, driving costs up, not down.

Plus, ultimately, we all know that this is just a foot in the door to moving to a single-payer government health-insurance, health care system that will be a real monopoly. Run by the government.

But then this woman, the one who asked the question in the first place, jumps in and has this bit of "wisdom" ...

The difference between opponents and proponents of health care reform ... we are ... worried about our neighbor. We're worried about the health and the welfare of people around us. And the opponents, are worried about themselves, and about the bottom line. And to me it's been like the most striking difference, and I personally think it's the saddest.

How about this, your smug highness? To me, proponents are all about appearing to be morally superior and beating their chests about what they intend vs the opponents, who realize that despite what you intend, the social cons of going down that path outweigh the pros.

We don't hold a sexy position that'll get us pats on our heads, which is why it's much harder to get people to listen to us and see where we're coming from.

We realize that when you remove financial incentive from the consumer so he is insulated from it, and demand service from the producer, demand for services will go up and one of two things will happen.

Either the price will rise, or services will become scarce. The demand/supply ratio will skyrocket. One of those two things has to happen.

It's happened in Canada. It's happened in Germany. It's happened in England. I'm sure it's happened in Cuba. And it will happen here, too.

Read The Bills

Michigan Democratic Representative John Conyers on why he should be fired.

So, don't read the bill, and then vote on it. And brag about your vote so you can get re-elected to vote for more things that you don't know what they mean.

Sent this to one of my senators this morning:

I will not be able to make it to this evening's town hall due to a family obligation.

However, if I were there, I would emphasize my belief in the Founders' view of Limited Government, and pass along this quote to Congress:

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood…” - The Federalist #62, James Madison

At the very least, I think members of Congress absolutely should read the bills, and they absolutely should be heavily involved in writing them -- rather than having Think-Tanks submit bills for approval. I don't have a problem with Congress taking advisement from such organizations, but Congress needs to be responsible for what is in the bills.

And if the bills are too long to read... write shorter ones.

Read the Bills. And One Subject At A Time.

Go to http://www.downsizedc.org/, sign up, and write your congress critters.

The Stricken Language and The Health Care Debate

This is part of what I was trying to get at (with a little more alarming information included here) in my earlier post. It doesn't really matter that the "end-of-life counseling" verbage has been stricken from HR3200.

* There are no death panels in HR 3200 because creating them there would have been entirely superfluous. If we are to have death panels, or any entity that might pass as one, the provision for such a panel is already the law of the land. It was made so earlier this year (conveniently, before anybody started paying attention) in the Stimulus Bill, which created the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.

On the other hand, the fact that it got people's attention is important.

I'm going to look at the bit I highlighted in bold, and marry it with what I find out about what Beck's been talking about ... this Apollo Alliance ... and the fact that it had a big hand in writing both the Stimulus Package and HR3200. And the fact that the alliance is between the green movment (Greenpeace), the community organizers (ACORN), and labor unions (SEUI, etc).

I am not sure of it yet, but I think that stinky smell we've been smelling has a rat-like form, this might just be where it is hiding.

The "Debate" and How it's Framed

This is another "Phil Got Carried Away In the Comments Section of Someone Else's Blog or Newspaper Article" post.

The truth is, Progressives object to the term “Death Panel” because they’ve got their heads in the sand about where this leads. That is the most misleading thing about this whole “debate”. We’re debating the effects with respect to human nature, sociology, and the nature of government power, and the philosophies of the people who want to implement this so badly.

They, as progressives believe, are trying to craft a bill to legislate responsibility, and human nature/sociology and the nature of government power are going to be dictated by what’s in the bill. Therefore, they debate only what’s in this bill.

If it doesn’t say “death panels” … if it doesn’t say there will be a body deciding who will get treatment or who won’t. Therefore, it’s “misinformation” (according to them) to say that it does.

But it’s completely disingenuous of them to point just to the language in the bill UNLESS there is language specifically stating that rationing and quality-quantity of life “triage” won’t be done as a part of it, ever, by law. And that’s not in there because they know it can’t be in there. They know it would restrict the government’s power to control every aspect of health care. And they wanna tinker.

See, Progressives — the leaders of the ideology, anyway, are academics at heart. They have these theories they want to try, and tinker with and somewhere deep down they really do believe they can make everything better for everyone. But academics in the “soft sciences” is theories built upon theories built upon theories and rife with circular arguments and incestuous self-reference …. and none of those theories can ever be proven in an ethical manner because they involve just the kind of experimenting … that Roosevelt and Obama and lots of other people wanted/want to do ON REAL LIVE PEOPLE’S LIVES AND LIVELIHOODS.

So they get around this little problem by focusing only on their intentions. And anyone who argues with them must, by definition in their pointy little heads, must have BAD intentions. Greed, power, whatever. Anything but a recognition that humans have their flaws and it’s best to let us all work things out for ourselves while having laws keeping us from killing or forcefully coercing each other to one or the other’s advantage. And if they failed, it’s because the Evil Ones foiled their plans, and anyway, their intentions were good so it doesn’t matter how many people were treated unfairly, or died, or had to be killed in order to get everybody with the program for The Greater Good™.

Of course, all of this was thought about and discussed extensively around 240, 250 years ago by some very bright men who happened to be male and white — which unfortunately means they’re on the outs right now and that’s no accident, either. We are not to “worship” their work … the work that founded the country that we all supposedly love (but some of us want to Change™ very badly, apparently) … after all, they are Old Dead White Men™.

But … I digress. As I often do. The deal is, the language clearly laid the foundation for a group of coercers, and Palin seized on it and used it to make the larger point that this is where single-payer health care will ultimately lead. I applaud her for it.

That language is now gone, now, thanks to her, but as I’ve said before… they’ll strike whatever language they need to from it to get enough popular support to pass it, and it will be a foot in the door to single-payer health care. And as I’ve said over and over and over again … EVERYBODY knows it. Everybody. The people pushing it will obfuscate and even deny it in public, but in private they’re rubbing their hands together in anticipation. The people fighting it will be called “___-mongers” and every name in the book in an attempt to dismiss them to short circuit any rational debate. In a debate, they lose. And they know it.

Managed Health Care

Do you remember the howls of protest that went up over HMO's, "Managed" Health Care, that theoretically focused on prevention and cut cost that way ... and how they were deciding, not doctors, not the patient, what treatment the patient would get?

It was horrible, remember?

But isn't that one of the ways this goverment health care plan is being spun?

There is one major difference, though.

You can't sue the government.

Quote of the Day

Maybe the week or month, too....

From Thomas Sowell:

With politicians, confusion is their most important product. They confuse bringing down the price of medical care with bringing down the cost. And they confuse medical care with health care.

Seriously, go read the whole thing. Very good article