The deed is done: health care bill passes
No surprise here: the House has just passed the bill America doesn’t want. Now we will be treated to a bunch of self-congratulatory speeches, and then the real fight begins in the Senate.
I decided a few days ago that this was going to pass, and earlier today I wrote:
I suspect that Pelosi will manage to wrangle enough compromises and simultaneously threaten enough Blue Dogs that it will squeak by, giving the rest of them cover to vote “nay” once the requisite 218 “yays” are reached.
That appears to be more or less what happened; the final tally was 220 in favor and 215 against.
Before the 2008 election I was very worried about the possibility of a post-election government that would be undivided, with Congress firmly in Democratic control as well as a Democratic president. The American people were angry, and they wanted to show their displeasure for Bush and the Republicans.
Well, they sure showed them, didn’t they? And now the Democrats have shown the people what they think of them. Promises, promises—of transparency, bipartisanship, posting bills 72 hours before voting—all were merely hooks to haul in the gullible. After that, we’ve got promises, schmomises—it’s all about power.
[NOTE: I thought it might be a good idea to reprise part of a post I wrote on October 8, 2008, not long before last year’s election. Here an excerpt:
That brings to mind the sort of thing I’m most concerned about this election””what Democrats (or any one party) can do with power. It’s not so much the possibility of an Obama Presidency””although that would be bad enough””but the possibility of an Obama Presidency plus a Congress so strongly Democratic that it might even be filibuster-proof. That combination could do very serious damage indeed…
We are seeing that tonight, and if this bill does pass the Senate and become the law of the land I fear we will see much more of it, up close and personal. But there’s also this, from the same post:
One possible silver lining is that, if history repeats itself and Democrats get this sort of control again, it would also give them the disadvantage of having to own whatever they might do. Theoretically, at least. We saw in the recent bailout vote that even though Democrats had the majority and didn’t need the Republicans to pass the bill, they tried with some success to pin its initial failure to pass on Republican recalcitrance. But if the Democrat majority becomes even more overwhelming, that approach will become more difficult, and they will be forced to take responsibility for their actions or inactions, having no big bad Republicans or evil Presidents to blame.
The Democrats certainly own this one.]
[ADDENDUM: This is a day late and a dollar short, don’t you think?]
If the Iranians ever smuggle a bomb inside a container of pistachios, let’s hope they go for DC instead of NYC.
I said awhile ago that when members of Congress are voting for 1000 page bills they haven’t read, then we no longer have representative government.
Thanks for this new thread, Neo. I have no heart to say more at this moment. I’m knitting at a quick pace, thinking that soon I will have to lay these needles aside and pick up something rather more to the point.
I love this country.
Well, I used
Hmmm. Some problem with my HTML. I meant to say, “I used to love this country.
I don’t understand what it’s becoming. though.
Neo,
When I use the “to a man” formulation, I’m merely going back to the gender-neutral usage that was common in my childhood. Pronouns weren’t so commonly thought to be sexist back then! And also, if we ignored gender, no one hit us on our Permanent Record Card (which I, also, remember) about it.
Matthew M,
Yikes! Well I would agree with you, except that my daughter is a student at Georgetown Law School in DC. I have had nightmares more than once about trying to get to her during a time of attack on DC. She hasn’t a car, or any other way to get out, should DC turn into a hell-hole.
My hope is that we somehow muster the cods to stop them irrespective of wherever they might try to attack.
This makes me sick to my stomach. Neo, I have to respectfully disagree: the Left has NEVER owned anything they don’t want to. The record of lies (a few of thousands):
–JFK was killed by Dallas rednecks
–America only fights in the Middle East to steal people’s oil
–Ted Kennedy was worthy of a national funeral
–The Dims had NOTHING to do with the mortgage/banking meltdown: it was all the Republicans’ fault
–Communist Cuba has better healthcare than we do
–Communist writers in Hollywood were innocent victims
–Alger Hiss was a hero; Whittaker Chambers was innocent
–FDR saved us from the Great Depression
–The Vietnamese Communists defeated us in battle
–Bugging out of Vietnam was an honorable thing and one of our finest hours
–We have always been at war with Eastasia,
AND, perhaps most damaging of all:
HITLER WAS A RIGHT-WINGER.
This last was their most spectacular and useful lie, and really stupefying given that the Nazis called themselves National SOCIALISTS. But STILL the Left gets away with lying about his leftism.
Which means that they can duck the fact that all tyrannies are statist/central command and control/left wing governments. By definition.
Tyranny? or Freedom?
And this health care debacle is a knife to the heart of our Republic. We’ll never get out from under this.
Never.
“Entitlements” never shrink, and they sure as shinola never end. We are so screwed.
And it’s blisteringly clear that the @#$%^&*()&^!!! abortion of a congress doesn’t give a @#$%^&*(^!! about the Citizens of this Republic. With the mediawhores on their side, they don’t need to.
220-215? They might as well quit now, because they stand no hope in the Senate. This vote was all for show.
I believe we are witnessing the high-water mark of the Obama administration. It will all be political retreat from here.
Look for a series of executive orders to try to accomplish some of the things for which there is inadequate political support.
A few months ago I read a book about the Wright Brothers: To Conquer the Air. It was excellent. I highly recommend it.
But lately I’ve been thinking about them in today’s context. They had an idea, researched it, conducted experiments, and ultimately succeeded in doing what had never been done before. They did it all with minimal interference from the government.
Does anyone think they could do that today? They would have to run a gauntlet of taxes, permits, fees, zoning ordinances, liability insurance, security checkpoints, and on and on. (And we mustn’t forget greasing the right bureaucratic palms.)
The point being that it was once possible in America to live one’s life, and pursue one’s dreams and goals without seeking permission from the government. Sadly, it appears that those days are over. And if that is true, then America’s greatest days are now behind us, and decline is inevitable and irrevocable.
Beverly: in my most pessimistic moments, I agree with you.
I am sick at heart over this – I pray it won’t get by the Senate. It is our only hope.
Oblio: don’t forget reconciliation in the Senate. That’s what worries me.
rickl Says:
November 8th, 2009 at 1:23 am
“I said awhile ago that when members of Congress are voting for 1000 page bills they haven’t read, then we no longer have representative government.”
Well put; but of course they want us to believe that this is equivalent to the enactment of the Social Security program during the last century; what a bunch of jerks…
“Entitlements” never shrink.
Except when the country is bankrupt. It is one thing to build a welfare state in Europe in the 1950s – when memories of wartime privation were still fresh, when you are rebuilding under the American defense umbrella, when you have large families and the workers far outnumber the retirees and when your industries have no meaningful foreign competition. It is quite another thing to build entitlement upon entitlement in a country when all the indicators are pointing the other way.
With the tide running the other way, we may become a kind of stagnant Euroland, with large numbers of unemployed on the dole, as in the UK, with a highly taxed entrepreneurial base largely in the South, and maybe dealing with our massive debt through default or inflation. We”ll see the continued alliance between the government and the largest businesses at the expense of the small and often more productive and creative. A Fascist, Coporatist future. The question is what happens when the system collapses, given that so many interest groups will be clamoring for a piece of the shrinking pie. Managing the ethnic tensions from this after decades of PC balkanization will be very testing. It will give us the opportunity to break free from the collectivist mindset and begin anew. If we have the imagination. Or sink us further into the mire if we don’t.
neo, you are right not to be complacent, but I think the reconciliation gambit can only work if you think that the results will pass without scrutiny. That’s not the case with Obamacare.
If the Democrats try to cram Obamacare through the reconciliation process in a crassly partisan way, they are guaranteeing an uproar that is going to motivate a lot of people to go the the midterm elections with the intention of voting Democrats out of office. The Red and Purple state Senators surely aren’t up for that, not after seeing Tuesday’s election results.
I think the Democrats are trying to appease the base in their most leftward districts. It’s a symbolic vote (I think).
Off topic, but worth a look:
Painting the Gulag
I found it via a comment at Belmont Club.
I wonder what effect this will have on the US Dollar relative to other currencies? Will the effect be immediate or will it wait till if/when it passes the senate? More US government obligations bound to effect it- wouldn’t it?
We of the reality-based community assume that the Dems must eventually awaken and acknowledge the damage they’ve caused, once the inevitable Unintended Consequences come to pass.
However, I’m predicting that they will deflect all blame with some variant of “the mess we inherited from Bush”.
These idiots, the most venal and corrupt group of CrapWeasels ever to congregate in the House, will never, ever, under any circumstances, recognize the evil they’ve done.
And since tar-and-feathers has gone out of style, all we can do is mutter darkly and work to vote them out next year.
I have to ask those who would support a government controlled healthcare system this simple question: “Would you give the Bush Administration this much power and control over your life?”
The point is this: I will stipulate that this Administration would do nothing nefarious with all the information, power and control that will come with a government run system. (I don’t believe the preceding statement for a minute) But what about the next…or the next….or the next?
Whu…whu….where am I?
The bill’s passage wouldn’t matter as much if, when conservatives took office, they’d stop ‘conserving’ and start abolishing. Eisenhower had the chance to abolish FDR’s bureaucracy and Nixon, LBJ’s. After them Reagan, Bush, and Bush abolished and repealed nothing. Instead they ‘conserved.’
“Whu…whu….where am I?”
You just woke up in the EU this morning. Welcome to governance by unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy.
Yep. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. The fully embedded, real threat. Politicians come and go. The laws they make do not. The nameless, faceless bureaucrats that keep it humming will not be subjected to the health care plans they enforce. And the NSA just keeps adding datat centers.
We have read about this for all our lives. Seen it elsewhwere for all our lives. Yet many of the people in our country just can’t see the very spot they are standing on. Hell, they welcome it.
I am reminded of an old King Crimson song – 21st Century Schizoid Man. So far, at least, I still don’t have to care what others think. So I can still say here come gun laws, here comes the fainess doctrine, including one for the Internet. Can we expect the Limbaughs and Levins of the world to eventually get arrested?
I sent the obligatory email to my Rep on Friday reminding him that if he voted for the bill, he loses my vote next year. A lot of good it did, and of course I didn’t expect a different outcome from him.
Given that this is New England, I must assume that my opinion was probably in the minority in terms of what he was getting from other constituents. But, then again, maybe he just doesn’t care.
I’m reconciled to this mess passing through the Senate. I think we all should. O will give another one of his long on style short of substance speeches and when this mess starts cratering in 5 or 6 years, the media and the Democrats will blame Bush as always. Pathetic.
Words are unable to express my reaction, so I turn to a picture:
http://ihasahotdog.com/tag/wtf/page/2/
They will resort to the reconciliation cramdown in the Senate, and they will do anything, legal or not, to win this. After that, who knows?
The times, they become more interesting.
Hong Says:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Naw, by then they’ll blame the current crop of Republicans for not properly funding it.
Skookumchuk et al.,
I say once again that by the time these guys are finished, we are going to wish we could get a European-style Social Democracy. But so many people say that a European-style social democracy is where we’re headed that I’ve been thinking Europe must be a lot worse than I remember it being. I fear the 2010 elections aren’t going to come soon enough to stop them from inflicting massive damage. And I think the fix is in on them anyway, by some means or another. I’m almost glad my parents are gone so they don’t have to see this, and what’s to follow. Lord help us.
Wretchard has said that we have to remember that if something can’t go on anymore, it won’t.
What’s going to happen then?
It doesn’t matter if the dems acknowledge they “own” this nonsense. The point is if the rest of us think they do.
But that’s pointless anyway.
The dems own the census, the DOJ, and the elections commissions large and small.
As Phil Gramm pointed out many years ago, when you have more people in the wagon than pulling it, you have a problem. The Obama game plan is to put more people in the wagon with government healthcare, extended unemployment compensation, union payoffs, periodic stimulus checks, subsidized housing, etc. Once established, such things become the norm and are not easily reversed. As has been noted before, feeding bears is dangerous because when you run out of food, the bear gets angry. Such policies seem to persist even in the face of strong evidence of their destructive nature (New York and California).
I must admit that I am caught off guard by the passage. I was hoping that the losses in Virgiania and NJ, togetehr with “Blue Dog” reticence, overall lack of agreement among Dems, and the outcry from the public, would prevent the bill from going any further. But here we are.
I still hope that it can be stopped in the Senate, or that the final bill can be prevented from passing . . especially as the 2010 election draws near. But, maybe instead of fear for the loss of their seats, the coming elections may just cause a “what the hell” attitude among even conservative and moderate Dems.
So, as much as I hate to say it, the situation looks darker today than I would have expected. Maybe we will need those pitchforks.
Yeah. Pitchforks. That’s the ticket.
Monday I’m pulling a fair chunk of my retirement out and turning it into food storage, a generator w/fuel tank, and a solar charger.
My security/fire door goes into its frame at the top of the subbasement stairs on Tuesday.
We are on hold for replumbing the house. See, I already bought the parts and labor is going to be cheap here pretty quick.
We’ll be paying in food. Cheap is relative.
See Insty for the China’s tee-up of Obama for next week’s summit. They are going to do to him exactly what Kruscheve did to Kennedy. The difference this time is that there is no way media can rewrite the reality. Not to say that they won’t make a good attempt, of course, but they’ll fail this time.
We aren’t in Camelot. We’re in the Projects.
What’s going to happen then?
what i have been talking about… the difference between nearsighted and farsighted is? as your sarcasm notes in the other post, our normal reaction to what they are doing under the guise of something will facilitate the move to a new level.
people are having a lot more altercations (at least in ny). only a tiny bit is hitting the news since most of it isnt yet crossing most lines, but there are a lot more of em. (and they are very often happening along the line of the ins and outs of liberal blame).
as the man at the center of the circus said;
you aing seen nuttin yet…
Wretchard also just said this in a recent comment on the Hasan shootings, which resonated deeply with me, and is applicable to this mess as well:
“Eventually you will have situations in which people who are actually not trusted may be put in formal positions of authority simply because they can’t be questioned. This is when the Openly Ridiculous Order situation comes in. When an elite starts to issue lunatic directives a certain something snaps. They lose legitimacy. People obey, but they do not comply. In other words, they start to obey only when the bosses are around. The moment the super leaves the room, they all start to laugh at him.
The really perverse thing about political correctness isn’t that they give you slops to eat; it’s that they give you slops to eat and expect you to smile and ask for seconds. The entire exercise is pointless except as an exercise and confirmation of power over you.
Societies don’t last long when their leaders become ridiculous. It’s a dangerous moment. In many ways the damage that Hasan created in Fort Hood, bad though it was, will be as nothing to the cannons he’s untied that are now rolling unsecured around the deck.”
We are indebted to Richard Fernandez for his wisdom and relentlessness.
I would suggest to you that if this is the best Pelosi can do then Obamacare will die a death of a thousand cuts. This was a very poor showing given their numbers.
People just need to not allow one skirmish to dishearten them. You now have the list of Congressmen and Senators to go after. Do it big time.
In the seeds of this supposing disadvantage lies the seeds of advantage. (SIC) Mao. This vote was meant to elicit the reaction some of you are having. Get out of the feeling business and start using your minds and resources available to you. STOP allowing yourselves to be played by a weak Democrat vote of little substance.
In my post above I should have said “more food storage”.
I am preparing for the long haul. The administration’s design is that the populace be fearful, hungry, and dispirited.
I propose to be well fed and non-panicked; do not mistake preparation for desperation.
The moment of contact removes the dread is part and parcel of waiting for battle. Only then can you put hands on the problem and force a decision.
We are at war. Make no mistake about that. The enemy lives inside the Beltway in a swamp in Maryland.
TmjUtah: I am preparing for the long haul.
Amazing, isn’t it, what you can accomplish just by doing a little at a time and at low cost. After a while, it is just part of life, like breathing in and out. Then you look back and think of how far you’ve come.
TmjUtah,
We’ve been at war for a long time and have failed (refused?) to recognize it. For years now I’ve been saying that the Republicans failed to recognize that they’re in a war, none of this has been “politics as usual” since at least the 2000 presidential election, which the Dems refused to recognize as legitimate and which they spent enormous energy in trying to ignore.
One of the things that gives leftists a great advantage in this war is their demonstrated ability to focus on the big picture, the long-term long haul. The Repbulican/conservatives focus on the short-term and assume everyone ultimately wants the same good things. That’s not correct, though. The left has been busy for at least a couple of generations, trekking on that Long March through the institutions, which they now control almost totally. They resemble the Islamists in this: that they are willing to undertake revolution and transformation, knowing that nearly none of those starting it will live to see it completed. They understood this from the beginning of their project, and have discounted it. Conservatives seem blind to this condition. I’m not sure whether this is willful ignorance or blind stupidity, and in the end it may not matter which it is because the result will be the same.
The single hopeful thing is that so many of us seem like we’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore (pace Howard Beale).
I could be wrong, but I believe this will pass in the senate.
Remember folks. All politics is local. Congresspeople don’t give a damn what the nation as a whole might think. Indeed, there is no “nation as a whole” that thinks. All thinking and acting is done by individuals. And politically, all these individuals are divided up into local house districts and the 50 states. Nancy Pelosi could not care less what the people where I live think about her politics. She only cares about what the people in her district – San Francisco – think. And those people overwhelmingly agree with her. This is repeated throughout the land, even in so-called red states – and especially in urban areas where over half of our population lives.
We could go on and on about the media, and election 08 protest votes, and movements to throw-the-bums-out-in-2010 ad nauseum. But the fact remains that our politicians are not the problem. They are only a symptom. The problem is that in the US today, too many people have traded free-dom for free-stuff.
This is the result. And it’s only going to get worse.
From Mark Steyn:
Isn’t the bolded part exactly what Artfldgr has been saying?
betsybounds:
The problem for conservatives is that their vision of society requires that other institutions like family, associations and churches be vital and more important to day to day living than is the nation-state, as Tocqueville admiringly mentioned was the case in the America of the early 19th century. But all of these institutions have been under heavy attack by the left for well over a century, with the liberals wanting them replaced only by the power of the nation-state. A state in which they dominate the bureaucracy. In that sense, liberals have it easy. You attack tradition and simply expand the government to fill the void as these traditional institutions collapse. For us, it is tougher, since we have to allow these other institutions to flourish in order to counterbalance or replace the force of the nation-state. A long row to hoe. It probably has to get much worse before it can get better.
“One of the things that gives leftists a great advantage in this war is their demonstrated ability to focus on the big picture, the long-term long haul.”
But madam, do not call it focus. Call it fantasy.
The public position is that they intend the greater good in all things.
But the steps to this “greater good” are stark and undeniable: division by race/economic state/ethnicity/religion (or lack thereof), state tyranny aimed at emasculating the citizenry and economic policy aimed at destroying not just the market but the very concept of individual capital.
The “greater good” as marketed – a level society where none suffer from material want, where the human animal is free to exist in his noble state of content and intellectual exploration of higher ideals…
… is simply shit.
The Left – and do not mistake my label to presume a monolithic, organized entity – has modified the goal almost entirely away from the “greater good”; has lowered its sights a bit, as it were.
The obstacle to the greater good is that nasty Constitution document. So, they will destroy that and award themselves the points as if that act equals the “greater good”…
Elois. Lazy ones, at that.
I never thought I’d take heart in a looming and unavoidable economic collapse, but you take comfort where you can find it. Obama has marketing and the entrenched plantation Democrats. What he doesn’t have – and SEIU may think they are tough, but they are outnumbered, outgunned, and about to be tremendously out angered – is the option of naked force.
IRS, EPA, FDA, and to a lesser extent the FBI are going to be attempted to be used to continue the national castration. But the military isn’t going to be herding the FOX audience into camps, nor is there anything close to the cult worship Hitler enjoyed in 1933.
A year ago… but I digress.
The problem for the true believers in the “Greater Good” is that they never ever acknowledged that the historical record indicts their philosophy as guilt of state. The guilt of the true believers is that they become party to tyranny – every time – and that they deny the contemporary collapse into that state every time.
Go look at the photos of the German burghers brought to witness Belsen, Buchenwald, and other facilities created to further the “greater good”. Today the spiritual descendants of those people apologize for Pol Pot and Castro.
The definition of the greater good has been changed to equal “the end of the Republic”.
My wife of twenty one years will not speak of politics or the economy with me any more. She will not understand that “Healthcare” isn’t about care, it is just another brick thrown on the back of a national economy and society about to break.
I am sad. I am worried. But I am not yet dead and neither is the Republic.
So I wait and watch for my chance to defend it.
2010 will be the pivot.
It’s true that too many people have traded free-dom for free-stuff, the statement of which is sometimes formulated as trading freedom for security. But to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, they have traded freedom for security, and they shall have neither.
But I can’t agree that the politicians in Congress now are merely representing the views of the people who voted to send them there. A great many of them have made it abundantly clear over the summer and since that they don’t give a tinker’s damn for what their constituents think or want them to do, and a lot of them went to varying lengths to avoid encountering any constituents at all. They’re very near to being a rogue bunch up there in that Goon Show on the Potomac. They’re either intoxicated with their own power or terrified of the power of their leaders. Arms are twisted, and votes bought, with increasing brazenness. The national Democrats have been working for many years on rough ways to enforce party discipline, and they’ve gotten to be quite good at it. The goal is becoming clearer every day, and it’s that they are interested in ruling us, not in representing us. They are interested in victory. And they’re beginning to taste it.
I agree with Oblio. I usually do though.
This bill is for show.
Oops – here’s an edit:
“The problem for the true believers in the “Greater Good” is that they never ever acknowledged that the historical record indicts the successes of their philosophy as unfailingly resulting in tyranny.
If you make the State responsible for individual Freedom, instead of responsible for defending that as an inherent quality of the human existence, you end up with camps and dictators. There is no middle ground.
Well, call it what you will, and I understand what you mean (again, I’ll quote Wretchard’s saying that if something can’t continue, it won’t) about it being a fantasy. But whatever it is, it’s awfully close to becoming terribly real, and they will have worked terribly hard for a very long time to bring it about.
Theodore Dalrymple wrote recently in a WSJ piece that the problem with state-run health care isn’t that it’s uniformly awful. It’s that it turns people into effective paupers, supplicants: it’s often awful, but you have to take what they give you because there’s no where else to go for better.
At some point we have to recognise these aren’t mere political differences polarizing our country. This is about the moral vs the morally inverted.
Which makes sense of why Progressives aren’t just wrong, but exactly 180 degrees wrong on almost every issue.
betsybounds: …it’s often awful, but you have to take what they give you because there’s no where else to go for better.
The question is – will enough citizens know that there are choices available for others even when they don’t have such choices themselves? Obviously, the US nomenklatura will have much better health plans than will the rest of us. But we all will know of them. It may be that wealthier Americans can travel to nearby foreign countries for better care at a somewhat affordable price. We will all know of that, too. It may be that other countries (e.g., Singapore) have mixed public-private systems with high quality and greater choice at lower cost. And we will know of all of these examples also. So long as we can compare ourselves to others who may be doing it better, there is a chance of reforming the nationalized system. But as I said above, it probably has to get much worse before it gets better.
Here is a definition from Babylon( an online legal dictionary).
The ‘Lectric Law Library
Usurpation, Usurper
USURPATION – The unlawful assumption of the use of property which belongs to another; an interruption or the disturbing a man in his right and possession.
There are two kinds of usurpation. 1. When a stranger, without right, presents to a church, and his clerk is admitted; and, 2. When a subject uses a franchise of the king without lawful authority.
government. The tyrannical assumption of the government by force contrary to and in violation of the Constitution of the country.
USURPER – One who assumes the right of government by force, contrary to and in violation of the Constitution of the country.
This entry contains material from Bouvier’s Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850’s.
betsybounds: I think a number of things are going on with members of Congress.
First of all, as always, many of the people representing us there are narcissists and liars to the core. It’s all about their own self-advancement. Some are also ideologues who think they know better than the people who elected them, but some will just do whatever it takes to get more power. Many are now in very safe districts where there’s really no contest as long as they please their Party leaders. And power in Congress comes to a great extent at the hands of the same thing—pleasing Party leaders.
Some of them have a radical constituency and they really are reflecting the will of their districts. I have less trouble with them than with the ones who clearly are ignoring the will of their districts in order to advance themselves or an agenda that is more radical than that of their constituents. Of course, when those constituents call or write in and let them know overwhelmingly what they think (or have meetings like the Tea Parties), it’s always possible for the member of Congress to tell him/herself that this is a vocal fringe group but not representative of their constituents as a whole.
Lots of ways to justify whatever it is the member of Congress happens to want to do, including the fact that they are elected by the people, but once in office they are supposed to vote as they feel best. The only power the people really have is to not re-elect them.
Neo,
No argument from me on any of that!
Betsybounds: It is all so painfully clear, isn’t it? I am at points beset by some self-doubt, albeit low-level, as when I posted here last year Obama=Chavez.
We are not, have not been wrong, and our dread-filled eyes see clearly what’s coming.
I admire your posts. You are giving Neo a good run for 1st place. Thanks
Tom,
Whoa! Thanks.
Well, I’m just being Betsy Blabbermouth, is all.
But Neo is Neo.
Mike Thompson (D-CA) – North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson doesn’t think the House of Representatives health care bill is perfect, but he thinks it’s a historic step forward.
”I don’t think it’s close to perfect,” Thompson said Saturday afternoon, hours before he intended to vote for the bill. “This is like any other major piece of legislation — we’re going to be working on this forever. As long as there are people and there’s a need for health care, we’re going to be refining this legislation. It’s the nature of the beast. But, this bill brings us one step closer to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.”
Mike Thompson is a worthless cull, once a man who won votes from both sides of the aisle, now and in recent years he has shown himself to be a partisan tool. He was going to vote for this bill in the very beginning, before the Recess when they were trying to ram it through. Before anyone, including himself, had read it, before anyone knew what was in it. Before the Tea Parties, before the “nasty” Town Hall meetings, before the people started asking questions and before the people told him what they thought.
He would have voted for it no matter what was in it – and he has now done just that.
There is no reason for us to pay for Congressmen and Senators like him to fly to Washington and maintain an office there. We know how he will vote. He does not need to be present or to attend any meetings or read any legislation. It is all dictated for him. We can fill in the blank for his vote while he sits on a street corner begging for change.
Gone are the days when Congressmen were Statesmen.
There is an election coming. Register to vote if you haven’t. VOTE even if you have been slacking. Make this one count.
Skookums:
Knowing ain’t acting. They know we know, and are not deterred.
We must act. And we must think of acting outside the (ballot) box.
You realize that our legislators just created a whole new class of criminals – ordinary citizens can now be jailed for five years. For what? Not buying health insurance.
When you think about having kids, you would wonder what kind of world you would be bringing them into – no we know – one in which our own government would do this to them.
A TIME FOR SEPARATION: let us split the country into two systems. Anyone Democrat or leftest must be forced into a Marxest system. Let them eat the fruits of their philosophy…confiscate 90% of their wealth and redistribute it, force them into goverment rationed care, make them buy only only the gangster UAW automobiles, stick their children in failing public schools. I want to make life so burdensome, so politically, socially, economically and spiritually deadening to them that they will howl in despair at the slavery they imposed upon themselves. The rest of us can live as productive free men and women.
Let’s not indulge crazy talk. We should spend our time organizing and campaigning and working to win the next elections. 2010 and 2012 will be barnburners. The good news is the influx of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who are starting to run for office. I have been interviewing a lot of their comrades who are looking for jobs (and hiring some of them), and there is some tremendous leadership experience and talent out there. These young leaders will need money and support.
I don’t deny that there are some pretty dark potential scenarios out there, and it is not impossible that we may find ourself in one of them. But I don’t think that we should nurse our fears, and so I will hold out a candle of optimism and the belief that we can defend and maintain a republican (small R) form of government in the US, following the US Constitution. We will not descend into one-party rule and socialist looting.
Oblio –
The DOJ’s mission is to shield ACORN and the Democrat party from all interence in vote fraud and stealing elections.
We’ll see how 2010 looks.
Good idea, Lucius.
ah well 🙂
We will not descend into one-party rule and socialist looting.
No, those like me will at least ensure that few of them will be able to enjoy the fruits of their [our]labors.
If loads of people are suffering, the miser will just have to be spread out a bit more.
Btw, regardless of whether we will or will not, that’s immaterial. The fate and destiny of all is not predetermined, but self-determined. Nothing is inevitable, except death at the end of life.
On that note, what is important is to recognize that instability and Crisis is exactly their game plan. This is intentional, not accidental. The new template, as Neo called it, rather than the Old Template.
Once that Crisis evolves, Normalization will follow on the heels of foreign powers. The Soviets are no longer here, so they can’t make use of the opportunity. The Leftist socialists themselves lack an army or anybody with a pair to do real fighting. But the Islamic Jihad… they are ready.
The strategic envelope here then must consist of preventing the toe hold of foreign powers, the complete elimination and obliteration of internal Fifth Columns, and the bolstering of domestic and military morale/unity.
How you go about it will be manifold. The wisps of a thousand cherry blossoms fall to the earth in patterns unseen and unknown. The certainty of death is all that can be seen. The cycle of renewal, life upon death and death upon life.
If the American people are vulnerable to predation by the government, understand this. The government is just as vulnerable to being preyed upon by us.
There is obviously far more to know about it as I expected. I like to stress that you have made some good points in your posting.