A friend remarked with some concern that the States' attempts to nullify the Socialized Health Care bill might not have validity, and even if it did, the Feds can still arrest people in every state for tax violations. My reply:
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Legitimate or not, I think the States' attempts to nullify the health care act should be viewed entirely from the perspective of a tactical operation on the way to a strategic goal, which is, ultimately, to get the health care bill rescinded in its entirety. The way to get there is to galvanize people across the country. You've got to get them to the point, in the words of Howard Beale, where they are "mad as hell and not going to take this any longer" -- while giving them the guidance of an alternative so their rage is not inarticulately dissipated.
If the States try to pull out of the Health Care Bill and then the Feds start going after people, even if it's got no Constitutional merit you want that, because you want to create actions that expose and provoke thuggery by the Feds. Frankly, I don't give a damn if it's undeserved some of the time. I want to publicize the living hell out of every instance of a Fed arresting Joe Shmo for refusing to cooperate. I want cops in our faces on the evening news. I want to do human interest stories and blogs and opeds and LTEs on the new Reich in DC and what it's doing to people. This is a game of pure psyops.
You push them to thuggish actions and then demonize them in every possible way by taking advantage of their own weakness: their lust for power and their lust to exercise that power. I'd push to do more than have the States tell the Feds they will "opt out". I'd push the Feds to come into each state to arrest people. If I had a sympathetic governor or four, I'd line up state troopers against federal marshals to protect state residents. I'd call out the national guard to oppose the Feds for pure publicity photos. I'd attempt to have governors order the Feds out of their state and to evict them from federal buildings. I'd organize demonstrations of those who publicly announce their refusal to participate in socialized health care as a condition of U.S. citizenship, or to pay the fines as punishment for not obeying. I'd take out ads with lists of names. I'd organize strikes by doctors and push the feds to order them back to work (they will, count on it). I'd push them to arrest doctors and piss off their patients and everyone else.
The upshot: I would be absolutely merciless in antagonizing the Feds and poking them in the chest over and over again, while exhorting my own followers to be like Gandhi and never do anything violent. We want the Feds to do that, first, if it happens, but even if they don't, we win, cause they are the ones swaggering around with the guns.
The challenge is to provoke the Feds now: The long delay in implementing the health care bill was not just to help insulate Democrats from election consequences or to pacify people with the Chinese water torture of slow death. It was to prevent precisely the kind of things I'm advocating. The Fed's don't lose face if they don't have to arrest anyone right now. So the States attempting a nullification right now is one way. We need other non-violent ways that clearly force the Feds to act right now to preserve their authority. Attempting to boot the Feds out of a state is another way. Totally without constitutional basis, but so what?Provoke them. Make them the outsiders, the interlopers, the bullys and thugs. Everyone hates a bully.
Along the way, don't be surprised by a lot of dissension within the Feds, themselves. A lot of them won't like what they are being ordered to do. Certainly a lot of the cops and military. What would be the publicity value of some Feds changing sides? Or revealing to the press what they are being ordered to do? Or resigning their commissions? Or just going AWOL? If you get that gravy, you milk it for all it's worth.
The more angry everyone gets, the merrier. But we've got to have ways to get them that angry (and keep them from doing anything stupid). Everyone has got to fully grasp and feel their rights are being trampled on and their system of government is being sold down the river into a gulag. We have to pick political fights and force the Feds to take actions and make statements that piss people off enough that when the bastards are voted out of office there's enough votes and enough justification for the spineless lying politicians who will climb out of the woodwork to ride this bandwagon to discern that it's to their advantage to ensure their future political career into perpetuity by voting for a one-line bill that says simply: "the Health Care Act of 2010 is rescinded."
You have to orchestrate events to lead up to that, and I would make sure politicians campaign on *exactly* that formulation, as the first act they will take up in the new session of Congress in January 2011. A real simple contract with America. Have the Tea Partiers announce they'll vote for any politician who will vote on that. Bring those politicians out of the woodwork.
I might also be tempted to add a contract to make their second bill "Congress shall not be exempted from any law that the American public is subject to", but they will carve out exemptions for themselves over time, and we don't want to be amending the Constitution right now, nor diluting the force of the main act. Keep the objective focused, keep it simple, and it might work. Robb
So while the health care debate has been going on, Obama has finished his treaty for disarming the United States, while not a soul noticed. Except the Kremlin, of course. Exactly on schedule, as I've warned repeatedly (for example, one out of many posts is http://robbservations.blogspot.com/2009/04/next-phase-in-obamas-rush-towards.html).
Seriously, this guy is evil like nothing I've ever seen in Washington, and his goal is nothing less than the destruction of the United States. Call me hyperbolic. Call me paranoid. I don't give a damn. I haven't been wrong about anything yet. It may be a wonderful thing to contemplate that Obama galvanized a lot of opposition to the Leftists/altruists in Washington, but Stalin galvanized a lot of opposition, too. That worked out well, didn't it?
Not that Obama is Stalin -- Obama would be the first guy to go if a Stalin came into power. Real thugs have no patience with two-bit ideologue thugs like Obama. Obama is just part of the road crew, paving the way.
The challenge for us now will be to try and preserve whatever we can of this country before all Obama's plans get fully enacted. To minimize the destruction for the rebuilding. If it's to happen at all. Though in my darker moments I think we're in 320BC in Athens... good ideas exist, but they're being drowned out in the milieu of the mob, who are on their way to the Colosseum for a sporting event. In that year, would you have thought the world was in for a couple thousand years of decline, barbarism, eventual blackness and real hard times that can't be bailed out with TARP money?
Note (I just can't stop ruminating -- the consequences for us down the road are just too awful, and dwelling on it is my form of hair-shirt therapy): Health care has been passed. Legal recourse is being pursued to have it ruled unconstitutional. How's that going to work? Obama has already put Sonia Sotomayor on the Supremes. In one month, John Paul Stevens (certainly no bastion of freedom, but oodles better than Sotomayor) will be retiring. Obama has control of the Senate for another 9 months. He will put another communist into the Supremes, and with Ginsberg and the other clones, Lord Voldemort will have solved the problem that plagued Roosevelt. The Supremes will be in his holster.
Meanwhile, he has managed to "negotiate" a treaty (is that the word, when you are working in league with the opposition?) with the Russians in record time. (How do you do that? Unless...You know, of course, that Obama's father worked for the Soviets?) And there will be time to ratify it in the Senate, if just a few Republicans accept Cornhusker kickbacks. (It requires a two-thirds majority.)
All this can be done before the Democrats lose control in the fall. Obama and "Ram it through" Emanuel have played it brilliantly. He never, ever planned on a 4 year term to get things done. His plan was always 2 years and nothing more. Much more could be said on that.
By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer Lynn Berry, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago
MOSCOW – A senior Kremlin official says the United States and Russia have reached an agreement on "all documents" necessary to sign a new nuclear arms treaty.
The Kremlin source spoke Wednesday by telephone to The Associated Press but would not elaborate.
President Barack Obama has briefed top lawmakers in Washington on the negotiations but so far U.S. officials have only said the final language is close.
Czech officials announced earlier Wednesday that Prague will host the signing of the new U.S.-Russian treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons that would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
The Russian ambassador to Prague, Alexey Fedotov, told Czech President Vaclav Klaus of the date for the signing, Klaus' presidential office said in a statement.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama briefed top lawmakers Wednesday on U.S. nuclear arms negotiations with Russia as administration officials reported that agreement on final language is close.
Obama spent an hour in the White House Situation Room with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., its ranking Republican. Both would play a key role in Senate ratification of the emerging treaty.
Czech officials announced earlier Wednesday that Prague will host the signing of a new U.S.-Russian treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons. It was in that city where Obama last April committed the United States to seeking "a world without nuclear weapons."
As part of that strategy, he shook hands with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last year on plans to sharply reduce the two countries' nuclear stockpiles. Obama and Medvedev had hoped to enshrine new limits in a replacement for the 1991 START accord, but that treaty expired last December as the talks dragged on.
Negotiations, which have been under way in Geneva, have centered on disputes over verification measures and Russia's objection to U.S. missile defense plans for Europe.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because no deal has been announced, confirmed reports about the expected signing venue.
"We are still working to finalize a new START treaty but we have talked to our Czech allies and the Russians about a signing in Prague when the treaty is finished," said the official. "Prague is where the president delivered a speech outlining his arms control and nonproliferation vision last spring and where we always wanted to do a signing."
The official added that the meeting with Kerry and Lugar was "part of our ongoing consultations with Congress on START negotiations."
Russian negotiators have balked at including some intrusive weapons verification measures in the new treaty. The administration has warned that without these, Senate ratification could prove difficult.
Any agreement would need to be ratified by the legislatures of both countries and would still leave each with a large number of nuclear weapons, both deployed and stockpiled.
The expired START treaty, signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush, required each country to cut its nuclear warheads by at least one-fourth, to about 6,000, and to implement procedures for verifying that each side was sticking to the agreement.
The two sides pledged to continue to respect the expired treaty's limits on nuclear arms and allow inspectors to continue verifying that both sides were living up to the deal.
Obama and Medvedev agreed in July to cut the number of nuclear warheads each possesses to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years as part of a broad new treaty.
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call... the Twilight Zone."
That's how I feel after the surreality of the health care vote. And surely we need some imagination right now.
There have been many people who have said they will not participate in the socialized health care that's been passed. And we can be sure there will be a slow, piecemeal effort to intimidate everyone else and bring down stragglers in the herd until all acquiesce. It they refuse to participate, my understanding is that the IRS will be charged with prosecuting them, though the government will attempt to avoid anything with the smell of mass arrests or significant publicity. But I remind you of what Ellsworth Toohey said:
"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"
The point to these people, the essence of what they are, is to control us while diminishing us.
They will go for the chinese water torture of time. This allows everyone to forget the controversy, to forget they were ever free. For example, if Citizen Joe decides he won't participate, he'll get progressively more sternly worded notices over a period of a year, informing him that he hasn't joined the national "plan". Warnings will be given of consequences, like those FBI warnings on every DVD--"Failure to comply could result in fines up to $$$ or XXX years in jail".
Ignoring them, a few months later he'll get a notice that a fine has been assessed, but he has a chance to get it reversed if he switches sides and plays ball.
Ignoring those, a month or two later he will be ordered to appear at some innocently named review board to hear his case.
Imagine this dragging out over 3 years, while the rest of the smurfs in our society come to complacently conclude that socialized health hasn't drastically changed their lives and gee, what's the fuss about?
Finally, his back against the wall, our conscientious objector refuses to pay his fine, or the additional fine for refusing to pay the first fine. He even has the temerity to refuse to go to his administrative hearing.
He is charged with tax delinquency, and doesn't show up in tax court.
Armed deputies appear on his doorstep one day, holding an arrest warrant. In front of his wife and kids he is handcuffed and carted away. The charge is something innocuous like "failure to appear", and he gets out on bail, but now the lawyers get involved. Maybe in 4 years (when socialized health care is fully implemented) he's been through various overnight stays in county jail, administrative hearings / tribunals / kangaroo "health" courts (but never a real court) and he's finally ordered to serve some real jail time. They might only give him a year with a chance to get out in 6 months on good behaviour, but are more likely start out with a simple "contempt" citation with a chance to change his mind (again), on the premise that a few weeks in the slammer with some serious offenders will soften him up.
Fear is the key, here. If he's stubborn, they'll ratchet it up, and probably pile on additional charges for obstruction of justice or god knows what. They can concoct any charge they want under the non-judicial system of arbitrary administrative judges and tribunals in this health care bill. But maybe the health commissars get impatient and go for broke -- they give him 5 years for bucking the system, on the premise that he'll just disappear from view till everyone has forgotten -- except the underground word of mouth.
That works to the advantage of the government. Tyrannies exist on such whispered fears, and our guys in government won't give up--our one, lonely conscientious objector is a threat to all of them. He might get out on parole on the condition that he sign up for health care. If he doesn't, he can spend some more time with the thieves, killers, rapists, pedophiles and bunkbed sodomists.
But when his sentence is finished, the same stipulation will still exist: if he refuses to participate, it starts all over again.
Imagine this happening in slow motion for dozens of other objectors. For every conviction based on trumped up charges of "injury to the social welfare" or some such contrivance, the government may trumpet it in the press as a warning to every one else--but they are more likely to pursue those objectors who commit violence or real crimes, out of anger at what's being done to them and their country, because the press associated with punishing violent people works much better to their advantage -- it discredits all the non-violent ones as social non-conformists, outcasts and trouble-makers.
Ever see the old Twilight Zone episode, "Eye of the Beholder"? It's about a woman in a bed at a state-run hospital after reconstructive surgery on her face, which is wrapped in bandages--which we can't see, any more than we can see the faces of the concerned doctors and nurses, who are always concealed in shadow. All we hear are their voices. But outside the patient's room, they talk about the patient's grotesque disfigurement, and one nurse remarks,
"If it was mine I'd bury myself in a grave someplace. Poor thing, some people want to live, no matter what."
The patient is desperately frightened of what will become of her if the surgery hasn't worked, and the doctor strives to reassure her, while preparing her for the worst, based on disappointing results from people of "her kind". Finally the bandages are removed and doctors and nurses recoil in horror: the surgery has failed: and the patient is as ugly as ever.
The camera pulls back and the patient's face is revealed to the audience: a face of overwhelming, innocent beauty.
The camera pulls back again and the doctors and nurses are revealed: deformed creatures of pig-like features, exuding malevolence.
The girl opens her eyes, sees the doctors and nurses and screams in terror. They attempt to drug her and she flees down empty corridors as the supreme leader of their nation delivers a hate-filled speech on televisions suspended overhead:
"...There must be a single purpose, a single norm, a single approach, a single entity of people, a single virtue, a single morality! ... We must cut out all that is different, like a cancerous filth! It is essential in this society that we not only have a norm, but that we conform to the norm! ...Conformity is the key to survival!"
I won't hold up the philosophy of this episode as without reproach (it advocates an odd mix of freedom and subjectivism), but you can't help watching it and coming away with the eerily overwhelming feeling that it captures the essence of the health care debate and the world we are moving into.
As I said, the government won't pursue hundreds or thousands of objectors at once, for damned sure. They don't want the expense and effort, and more important *do not* want to give objectors the appearance of being part of a widespread movement, even if they are.
My point here is simply this: there needs to be an organization in place so that every single person who refuses to participate in socialized health care has a place to go so they won't be forgotten--a place providing support, legal and otherwise, so it won't be too frightening and devastating to stand up against the Goliath, so they can't be easily picked off as stragglers in a herd by the wolves in government.
The goal is this: make every case a cause celebre, so each victim who has the courage to stand up can inspire others to stand up themselves, so the movement grows rapidly and without the ability of the government to control it or tame it. The goal is an organization to keep the fire of resistance burning in people, and to fan it, encouraging more and more people to "opt out" and "drop out" of socialized health care, with a message to the government and the socialists who created it: get the hell out of my life.
There's still some chance that the bill won't become law (though I wouldn't count on it). There's still some chance the courts will invalidate it (though I wouldn't count on it). There's still some chance the Republicans will acquire some backbone, take control of Congress and repeal it--though I wouldn't count on it. I'd start preparing anyway, and figure out how to promote mass civil disobedience on a scale this country has never seen before, if we are to get reversed this horrible rush to bald, pig-faced statism.
I was on an email list today where one of the respondents remarked belligerantly on the wonders of statism, the marvels of big intrusive government, the privilege of paying taxes, etc, ad nauesum, and ended with book recommendations on the horrors of capitalism. I had to make a reply. Had to.
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All these books on the horrors of capitalism are based on the premise of unbridled statism and the rejection of every legitimate concept of individual rights, which are requirements of human existence in the real world. They set up a straw man that holds men beholden without limit to their "brothers" in a sort of global social serfdom, and then criticize capitalism for not embracing a principle antithetical to human nature and the principle of capitalism itself -- freedom -- while accepting, simultaneously rejecting, and using the bountiful largesse created by capitalism, in their quest to destroy it -- most especially, the principle of freedom itself.
The authors of these books typically redefine freedom so that we're only "free" when we're slaves to the well-being of every other creature on Earth. We're only free, they say, when we're shackled to our "duties", regulated into oblivion, beaten into submission with non-objective laws and taxed out of existence to support everyone else. They call it "egalitarianism" and "social justice". When the creatures benefited by their alleged concern aren't even human, they call it "environmentalism". When they don't even care about any creatures as such, I call it just old-fashioned nihilism.
For a better book on capitalism, I recommend "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal", which will at least familiarize you with what it actually is, rather than what it isn't. For a book on what happens on a global scale with unfettered statism when capitalism is rejected, I recommend Atlas Shrugged. As a few million people have recently noticed, it is the most accurate book of all.
If you recall the consequences for the Catholic church when Martin Luther was blogging with a hammer on the gate at Wittenberg, and if you recall that Immanuel Kant (Godfather of the Left) lived in Konigsberg, you'll understand that title. Copied at bottom is a particularly good op-ed by Mark Steyn highlighting the very great danger that Obamacare poses for the future of this country: the permanent change to a statist government. My highlights:
So there was President Obama, giving his bazillionth speech on health care... 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. ...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. ... 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.
Emphasis mine. Steyn echoes my comment last fall in "The Real Meaning of Health Care Reform" (http://robbservations.blogspot.com/2009/09/real-meaning-of-health-care-reform.html), which I can't help re-emphasizing: "The primary goal of health care reform is the enactment of the legal basis for totalitarianism." This is so fundamental to Obamacare that you must fully grasp it to understand why Obamacare must be stopped at all costs.
Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic. ...The Democrats understand that politics is not just about Tuesday evenings every other November, but about everything else, too.
So true. At least, the Fabian Democrats understand it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society). Unfortunately, most Republicans couldn't grasp the dynamic of their own demise if they had a howitzer shoved in their mouth with a madman on the trigger. Oh, wait. Truth meets reality.
...Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists – sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists. The short history of the post-war welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life... Look at it from the Dems' point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier. That's a huge prize, and well worth a midterm timeout. ...that hardly begins to convey the scale of it. Obamacare represents the government annexation of "one-sixth of the U.S. economy" ... Nobody has ever attempted this level of centralized planning for an advanced society of 300 million people. ...The Soviet Union did, of course, and we know how that worked out.
Why were 40 Democrats sacrificed to pass the health care bill (they will lose in the next election for voting for this), and why do the people behind this want a "dominant role of government in health care"? ...Their goal is a Chavez-like incremental communism with an end-game of the Cuban model. ...It was Pelosi's sacrifice of so many members of her own party to her agenda that finally convinced me she is a committed communist and not just a socialist.
And I stand by that. Steyn further echoes my observation (now being well borne out) that "This is why they will fight tooth and nail to pass any kind of compromise."
"Obama's ultimate goal is socialism in America in every sphere of life, and this health care "overhaul" bill is only a means to that end. He won't give up on it."
This is what Steyn is reminding us of, and what we must not forget, or we will soon have a steady diet of Leftist worms in Washington.
(Historical Note: After Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg Church door in 1517 and pissed off the Catholic clergy once too often, the Pope in 1521 called the "Diet of Worms" -- a general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place at Worms, a small town on the Rhine River -- to decide Luther's fate. From the delay between 1517 to 1521, you can gather that blogging in those days was not a speed-of-light process. By donkey, usually--the draft animal of choice for monks everywhere. What Steyn warns us of is that Cardinal Obama would like to play Kong while making Donkeys of all of us.)
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." And, when polls showed an ever larger number of Americans ever more opposed to Obamacare (by margins approaching three-to-one), Republicans were further stunned to discover that, in order to advance "reconciliation," Democrat reconsiglieres had apparently been offering (illegally) various cosy Big Government sinecures to swing-state congressmen in order to induce them to climb into the cockpit for the kamikaze raid to push the bill through. The Democrats understand that politics is not just about Tuesday evenings every other November, but about everything else, too.
A year or two back, when the Canadian Islamic Congress attempted to criminalize my writing north of the border by taking me to the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, a number of outraged American readers wrote to me, saying, "You need to start kicking up a fuss about this, Steyn, and then maybe Canadians will get mad and elect a conservative government that will end this nonsense."
Makes perfect sense. Except that Canada already has a Conservative government under a Conservative prime minister, and the very head of the "human rights" commission investigating me was herself the Conservative appointee of a Conservative minister of justice. Makes no difference.
Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists – sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists. The short history of the post-war welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect "conservatives," as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the Left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who, for tuppence-ha'penny or some such, would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.
Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A bigtime GOP consultant was on TV, crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass Obamacare because it's so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November.
OK, then what? You'll roll it back – like you've rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago? Like you've undone the federal Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel'n'dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter? Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:
"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"
Indeed. Look at it from the Dems' point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier. That's a huge prize, and well worth a midterm timeout.
I've been bandying comparisons with Britain and France, but that hardly begins to convey the scale of it. Obamacare represents the government annexation of "one-sixth of the U.S. economy" – i.e., the equivalent of the entire British or French economy, or the entire Indian economy twice over. Nobody has ever attempted this level of centralized planning for an advanced society of 300 million people. Even the control-freaks of the European Union have never tried to impose a unitary "comprehensive" health care system from Galway to Greece. The Soviet Union did, of course, and we know how that worked out.
This "reform" is not about health care, and certainly not about "controlling costs." As with Medicare, it "controls" costs by declining to acknowledge them, or pay them. Dr. William Schreiber of North Syracuse, N.Y., told CNN that he sees 120 patients per week – about 30 percent on Medicare, 65 private on private insurance plans whose payments take into account the Medicare reimbursement rates, and about 5 percent who do it the old-fashioned way and write a check. He calculates that, under Obamacare, for every $5 he now makes, he'll get $2 in the future. Which suggests now would be a good time to retrain as a realtor or accountant, or the night clerk at the convenience store. Yet Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., justifies her support for Obamacare this way:
"I even had one constituent – you will not believe this, and I know you won't, but it's true – her sister died. This poor woman had no dentures. She wore her dead sister's teeth."
Is the problem of second-hand teeth a particular problem in this corner of New York? I haven't noticed an epidemic of ill-fitting dentures on recent visits to the Empire State. George Washington had wooden teeth, but, presumably, these days the Sierra Club would object to the clear-cutting. Yet, even granting Congresswoman Slaughter the benefit of the doubt, is annexing the equivalent of a G7 economy the solution to what would seem to be the statistically unrepresentative problem of her constituent's ill-fitting choppers? Is it worth reducing the next generation of Americans to indentured servitude to pay for this poor New Yorker's dentured servitude?
Yes. 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.
This was to be expected -- the global warming flim-flam artists been working this scam for 30 years, and aren't going to let go an inch from the brass ring (it surely takes a lot of brass to pull this off):
Paul G. Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University who started the effort, said in the e-mails that he is seeking a $1,000 donation from as many as 50 scientists to pay for an ad to run in the New York Times. He said in one e-mail that commitments were already arriving.
Chump change compared to the grants they are fighting to preserve. But note the angle they will now be pursuing:
Mr. Schneider said Mr. Inhofe is showing "McCarthyesque" behavior in the mold of the Cold War-era senator who was accused of stifling political debate through accusations of communism. "What I am trying to do is head off something that will be truly ugly," he said. "I don't want to see a repeat of McCarthyesque behavior and I'm already personally very dismayed by the horrible state of this topic, in which the political debate has almost no resemblance to the scientific debate."
What scientific debate? Those commies are always getting mileage out of ol' Joe. What really galled me was
He said the "social contract" between scientists and policymakers is broken and must be reforged, and...
There is no such thing as a "social contract" between a "scientist and a policy maker". The scientist's only "contract" is to the truth. "Policy" makers, almost by definition, are liars and thieves. Their only proper "contract" (I hate that Leftist terminology -- it's intended to implicitly impose obligations on everyone who isn't smart enough to catch the meaning) is to protect our individual rights to life, liberty and property, defend us from aggressors, and otherwise leave us the hell alone.
...he urged colleagues to try to recruit members of Congress to take up their case. He also said the press and nongovernmental organizations must be prodded.
In other words, these guys (or "pathetic bunch of losers" -- they don't deserve the title of "scientists") have learned nothing. They are simply political hucksters trying to manipulate with P.R. and a gun, rather than reason with facts. Pull the plug on the entire bunch, I say. But for real gall, you can't match this:
"We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths," [Mr. Woodwell ] wrote.
I have three words for that: Pot. Kettle. Black. Actually, that's terribly unfair to Pa Kettle, who's reasoning is shiny stainless steel compared to these black-hearted short-order cooks.
Though they might be sideline players, I have to wonder how much involvement the White House has in this new caper? I mean... campaign. Obama and Emanuel don't give up easy. Obama is another one that is the culmination of a lot more than 30 years effort. (A communist's dream candidate -- in the White House!) Al Gore for sure is involved -- a dead certainty. He's got way too much riding on this to let go. This crowd may lose again and again, but for sure they will keep coming back like Jason the Hockey Mask guy in Friday the Thirteenth. Lock your door.
By Stephen Dinan
Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.
In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.
"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.
Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
"This was an outpouring of angry frustration on the part of normally very staid scientists who said, 'God, can't we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,'" said Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment who was part of the e-mail discussion but wants the scientists to take a slightly different approach.
The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over the next 25 years.
Last month, President Obama announced that he would create a U.S. agency to arbitrate research on climate change.
Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a chief skeptic of global-warming claims, is considering asking the Justice Department to investigate whether climate scientists who receive taxpayer-funded grants falsified data. He lists 17 people he said have been key players in the controversy.
That news has enraged scientists. Mr. Schneider said Mr. Inhofe is showing "McCarthyesque" behavior in the mold of the Cold War-era senator who was accused of stifling political debate through accusations of communism.
In a phone interview, Mr. Schneider, who is one of the key players Mr. Inhofe cites, said he disagrees with trying to engage in an ad battle. He said the scientists will never be able to compete with energy companies.
"They're not going to win short-term battles playing the game against big-monied interests because they can't beat them," he said.
He said the "social contract" between scientists and policymakers is broken and must be reforged, and he urged colleagues to try to recruit members of Congress to take up their case. He also said the press and nongovernmental organizations must be prodded.
"What I am trying to do is head off something that will be truly ugly," he said. "I don't want to see a repeat of McCarthyesque behavior and I'm already personally very dismayed by the horrible state of this topic, in which the political debate has almost no resemblance to the scientific debate."
Not all climate scientists agree with forcing a political fight.
"Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.," said Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Surprising, since these strategies haven't worked well for them at all so far."
She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions, which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing for policy changes "need to push the disconnect button for now," because it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the science is restored.
"Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics, not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research," she said.
Ms. Curry also said that more engagement between scientists and the public would help - something that the NAS researchers also proposed.
Paul G. Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University who started the effort, said in the e-mails that he is seeking a $1,000 donation from as many as 50 scientists to pay for an ad to run in the New York Times. He said in one e-mail that commitments were already arriving.
The e-mail discussion began late last week and continued into this week.
Mr. Falkowski didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and an effort to reach Mr. Ehrlich was unsuccessful.
But one of those scientists forwarded The Times' request to the National Academy of Sciences, whose e-mail system the scientists used as their forum to plan their effort.
An NAS spokesman sought to make clear that the organization itself is not involved in the effort.
"These scientists are elected members of the National Academy of Sciences, but the discussants themselves realized their efforts would require private support since the National Academy of Sciences never considered placing such an ad or creating a nonprofit group concerning these issues," said William Kearney, chief spokesman for NAS.
The e-mails emerged months after another set of e-mails from a leading British climate research group seemed to show scientists shading data to try to bolster their claims, and are likely to feed the impression among skeptics that researchers are pursuing political goals as much as they are disseminating science.
George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, said in one e-mail that researchers have been ceding too much ground. He blasted Pennsylvania State University for pursuing an academic investigation against professor Michael E. Mann, who wrote many of the e-mails leaked from the British climate research facility.
An initial investigation cleared Mr. Mann of falsifying data but referred one charge, that he "deviated from accepted practices within the academic community," to a committee for a more complete review.
In his e-mail, Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" but said scientists have had their "classical reasonableness" turned against them.
"We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths," he wrote.
I think Obama's looking much older than you think. Copenhagen was tough enough on him, but have you seen him after the Health Care bill failed to get passed? Still, I think we should be cautious before pronouncing him gone. The guy has more lives than the character of Apophis, the evil nemesis of the Stargate SG-1 TV show.
-----Original Message----- From: Ed Subject: The Pinnacle of Power
Has anyone noticed that Obama's hair is turning gray? He's been in office for little more than a year, and has behaved like a tyrant, but still the office is costing him. No sympathy here, just an observation.
