HCR: who “allows” you life?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was intrigued by this comment, made in response to a WSJ Karl Rove article on the Republican plans to undo Obamacare. The comment is an excellent example of a certain type of leftist thought [I have corrected some spelling errors]:

People who think their salary or profits belong to them, that government taxes THEIR money, doubtless agree with you.

But that money is NOT YOURS. It is ours, on loan to you for good behavior.

Innovation and hard work not only should be rewarded, they are rewarded. Which is a good thing.

Fellow members of the same society that allows you life, deserve life also. Such as access to medical care.

Who is this “ours” the commenter refers to in the second paragraph? And who is “you?” Are they not the same people, and if so, who are the lenders and who the lendees?

But it is actually the last paragraph that interests me most, the one that attempts to argue in favor of a right to medical care (although the commenter refers to it as “access,” that is not what he means).

In the first sentence of that paragraph, the writer turns the Founders’ words at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence on their head. For the commenter, the truths that the Founders thought so “self-evident” are not evident at all.

Here’s the Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So the right to life is a natural one that is provided by the Creator, not one “allowed” by a society of fellow humans. It seems that, just as the commenter believes money is on loan from that community, so is life itself.

Back in September, Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and quoted those words from the Declaration, leaving out the word “Creator.” It got a lot of attention. Much of the focus was on whether his act was a slip of the tongue or a very deliberate omission, and what either might say about the depth of his religious beliefs and/or the fact that mention of the deity has become non-PC in liberal circles. Here’s the excerpt:

I doubt it was a slip, although it might have been. Obama ordinarily chooses his words very carefully, and this is such a famous passage from the Declaration that it would be odd indeed if he weren’t familiar with it. But whether or not a person is a believer, atheist, or agnostic, if that word is left out of the quotation we lose a great deal. Once the power to “allow” life is vested in society—an aggregate of mere people—the way is paved for further encroachments on liberty for the good of all.

HCR repeal vote: symbolic and yet…

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I called the House vote to repeal HCR “merely symbolic.”

In retrospect, I realize the term I used may have been misleading, because many readers thought I meant “meaningless.” I did not.

There are many “mere symbols” that are fraught with meaning. In fact, that’s what a symbol is: something that in and of itself does not accomplish anything, but can stand for something else quite important. It was in that sense I used the term.

The vote means that, at least this time, the Republicans have kept their word. It means they listened to what the people have been saying as far back as the summer of 2009 when the previous Congress ignored the wishes of the people expressed in town meetings in many states.

Without follow-up, however, the vote will remain “merely” symbolic. Republicans campaigned on the cry not only of “repeal,” but of “replace.” One thing I hope the long fight over the HCR bill will have accomplished by the time it’s over is to spur action to truly reform health care insurance in this country in ways that actually help the situation rather than hurt it. I am an incrementalist in this regard; I don’t believe we have to destroy the system in order to save it.

It won’t be easy. The problems are weighty: health care of the high-tech type that we’ve developed over the last few decades is inherently expensive, and covering everyone on some basic level will be expensive, no matter how it’s done. Right now it’s already there for the majority of people, but in a piecemeal, haphazard, and probably not cost-effective way. There is no lack of ideas for how to streamline the system and make it more flexible as well (such as allowing catastrophic coverage to be more available), as well as to fill in the gaps and provide coverage for the non-covered. But none of them will come cheap, and the details are what’s important.

Replacement probably cannot be done until after the 2012 election, at the earliest. The president still has veto power, and the Senate is in Democratic hands. But in the meantime, there might be small parts of the bill that can be repealed, as well as work on defunding. Until then, these “symbolic” votes will show voters the direction in which the Republican Party intends to be headed if it does manage to win control of the Senate (and the presidency) in 2012.

Judge Roll: greater love hath no man

The New Neo Posted on by

Amazingly, a video exists of the Tucson shootings, taken by a store security camera. It shows, among other things, that Judge Roll appears to have died trying to protect a fellow victim named Ronald Barber, who was on Giffords’ staff:

Describing the video, Mr. Kastigar [of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department] said the judge was “intentionally trying to help Mr. Barber,” adding, “It’s very clear to me the judge was thinking of his fellow human more than himself.”

The judge guides Mr. Barber to the ground, shields him with his body, and then tries to push himself and Mr. Barber away from the gunman, who was no more than three to four feet away as he fired, Mr. Kastigar said.

“He pushes Mr. Barber with his right hand and guides him with his left hand. The judge was on top of him and is covering up Mr. Barber, literally lying on top of him, and his back was exposed,” Mr. Kastigar said.

The judge was shot in the back.

Ronald Barber was shot twice but is alive and has been released from the hospital.

This statement from Barber’s family, issued before the news on Roll’s heroism was released, gives a clue as to an extra motive the judge may have had for his actions [emphasis mine]:

We would like to express our deepest sympathies to the families who lost love ones on Saturday. Dad [Mr. Barber] is so deeply saddened by the loss of his friend and fellow staff member Gabe Zimmerman and his long time friend Chief Judge John Roll.

Taranto writes the primer on Palinoia

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve probably written at least 100,000 words trying to explain Palin-hatred. The rest of the right side of the blogosphere has babbled on and on in the same attempt. But James Taranto explains it all, elegantly and succinctly, here.

Absolutely brilliant.

[Hat tip: commenter “Bill West.”]

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

I take it back—no, not of the day, of the week. Maybe of the month. Oh heck, maybe of recorded history.

I bring you:

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Note the colorful and sensuous prose, as well as the double entendre of “straight seize your rss feed to remain abreast.”

Hating Joe Lieberman

The New Neo Posted on by

Until now, I was unaware of the existence of LDS (Lieberman Derangement Syndrome). But Emily Bazelon certainly demonstrates it in her farewell letter to Lieberman, published in Slate.

It ain’t no Valentine. Bazelon begins with the following admission:

My corner of Connecticut was covered in ice today, until news broke of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s impending retirement. Magically, a warm glow spread. It was a delicious feeling: the end of the reign of the politician I despise most.

Why do I loathe, loathe, loathe my 68-year-old four-term senator? My feelings are all the stronger for being fairly irrational.

Then why, why, why, oh why, should anyone care what she says? On a blog, perhaps; many blog readers like to read the personal feelings of their hosts, and the more rabid the better. But how is it that a supposedly serious journalist, Slate editor and legal expert, writer for such formerly august publications as the Atlantic and the WaPo, is indulging in this irrational venting of spleen and expecting us to respect her for it?

Just to give you the flavor of the piece, Bazelon approvingly quotes a friend’s unsupported statements that Lieberman’s observance of Jewish law has been more politically opportunistic than sincere. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that observing the Jewish sabbath is a sure ticket to election, even in Connecticut, but who needs to use reason when you’ve got hate?

It gets Bazelon’s goat that Lieberman denounced Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair, although I’d lay money on the fact that, had Clinton been a Republican having sex (or not exactly having sex) with Lewinsky, Bazelon would have been one of the first to condemn him. Her problem with Lieberman was that he stuck to principle above party loyalty, because his siding against Clinton was “a gift to the president’s enemies.” Reason enough to hate a person, don’t you think?

Another source of Bazelon’s ire seems to have been when Lieberman took the stand that Catholic hospitals not be compelled to offer the morning after pill to rape victims, and his pointing out that in Connecticut it’s not a long trip to get to a hospital that does.

And what does a phrase like the following mean coming from a person who purports to be a serious journalist, “Lieberman’s unrequited, unquenchable love for the Iraq war?” It not only suggests that Lieberman advocated the war because he’s a bloodthirsty lover of killing, but it makes me wonder how love for war could be ever be “requited.”

Bazelon is unrepentant, and hardly alone in her LDR. In a telling moment, she quotes a friend as referring to “many rounds of playing the peculiar Connecticut liberal cocktail party game ‘I hated Joe Lieberman before you hated Joe Lieberman.'” That may just be the key phrase in the entire piece, because I think what’s happening here is that Bazelon is continuing that liberal cocktail party game among her friends at Slate.

It’s not a pretty game, but it seems like fun to play. As best I can recall, the first time this sort of tone was aired in a supposedly reputable periodical was back in September of 2003, when TNR’s Jonathan Chait came out of the closet with his confessional column that began with the famous line, “I hate President George W. Bush.”

Chait’s piece was curiously like Bazelon’s, or maybe it’s the other way around. Like her, he freely admitted that his hatred had springs that were not altogether substantive:

I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I’m tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too…He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school–the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks–shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks–blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudopopulist twang.

It goes on, but I’ll stop there—except to say that journalists such as this have no reason to complain about invective in public discourse.

“Crosshairs” in the crosshairs

The New Neo Posted on by

CNN’s John King has apologized for guest Andy Shaw’s use of the now-forbidden word “crosshairs” in describing the Chicago mayoral race.

Bravo! Let’s just ban all non-literal speech, metaphors and colorful language of any kind. Let’s ban not only guns, but even the word “gun.” Better safe than sorry.

Let’s have a competition in who is holier-than-thou in making sure that his or her words could not possibly inflame a single human being to even think of violence. Because we all know that violence comes from people hearing words such as “crosshairs.”

While we’re at it, Allahpundit makes a good point:

Am I hallucinating or didn’t this same network [CNN] once have an entire show devoted to heated political debate called ”¦ “Crossfire”? With a crosshairs logo? How did the republic survive while it was on the air?

CNN might reply that now it’s doing it’s mea culpa for that sin. It might also reply that it was really William F. Buckley, a conservative, who started it all with “Firing Line,” which was on PBS for decades. The term “firing line” refers, of course, to battle, to “the line of positions from which fire is directed at a target.” It also has a secondary meaning, “the forefront of an activity or pursuit.”

“Crosshairs” is an even more eclectic word. It indeed describes the scope in a firearm, but it actually refers to any optical device with that sort of sighting marker. The more general word is “reticle“—next on the banning list?—of which “crosshairs” is the most common and simple type.

Let’s learn what crosshairs actually means before we kiss it goodbye:

A reticle is a net of fine lines or fibers in the eyepiece of a sighting device, such as a telescope, a telescopic sight, a microscope, or the screen of an oscilloscope. The word reticle comes from the Latin “reticulum,” meaning “net.” Today, engraved lines or embedded fibers may be replaced by a computer-generated image superimposed on a screen or eyepiece. There are many variations of reticles; this article concerns itself mainly with a simple reticle: crosshairs.

Crosshairs are most commonly represented as intersecting lines in the shape of a cross, “+”, though many variations exist, including dots, posts, circles, scales, chevrons, or a combination of these. Most commonly associated with telescopic sights for aiming firearms, crosshairs are also common in optical instruments used for astronomy and surveying, and are also popular in graphical user interfaces as a precision pointer.

The word “crosshairs” has been widely used in politics till now. But it’s been newly-banned due to the MSM’s and other politicians’ need to differentiate themselves from the heinously coldblooded Sarah Palin, the only person who’s ever used it before (“we have always been at war with Eastasia”) and who obviously inspired the demented Jared Loughner to gun down 20 people in Tucson.

Meet the new, kinder, gentler Andrew Sullivan

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t like to link to Sullivan, so I’ll link instead to Ann Althouse’s post about him, which alerted me to the following passage representing his new attempt to talk about his béªte noire Sarah Palin while taking the high road of civility in order to “make strong and lively points without demonization” [emphasis mine]:

…[T]here is no conceivable way in which, in my judgment, her presence on the national stage can improve our discourse, help solve our problems or improve public life. But that does not forbid one from noting the great example she has shown in rearing a child with Down Syndrome, whatever his provenance, or noting her effectiveness as a demagogue, or from admiring her father’s genuineness or her skill in exploiting new media. I’ve consistently tried to do this without undercutting my still-raw amazement that an advanced democratic society could even contemplate putting such an unstable and irresponsible person in a position of any real power.

There is actually no conceivable way (note Sullivan’s use of that highly appropriate word) that anyone newly-committed to making “strong and lively points without demonization” can doubt the provenance of Trig Palin, as Sullivan continues to do in his ever-so-pompous (give me a break: “provenance?”) aside.

“Unstable and irresponsible,” thy name is Sullivan. At least he’s not in a position of any real power.

Loughner, dangerousness, and the collective gut feeling

The New Neo Posted on by

It seems that nearly everyone who came into contact with Jared Loughner during the past year or two sensed that he was weird, perhaps even crazy. Nor did the form his oddity took seem harmless, although as far as we know he never directly threatened anyone.

Nevertheless, scads of people perceived him as a threat and as imminently very very dangerous. Of all those who had encountered this guy recently in daily life—and especially his teachers and classmate, and the former friends with whom he broke off relations (we don’t know much yet about his parents)—there seems to have hardly been a dissenting voice to the view that this guy was going to do something frightening and destructive to others.

But our justice system is act-oriented, not person-oriented. You can’t put someone in jail for being crazy and giving people a very uneasy feeling, especially in the absence of threats, although you used to be able to put that same someone into a mental institution for that very reason—sometimes for a short while, sometimes for a long while. We are now far more libertarian and restrictive about such things, and perhaps we should be; I’m a moderate libertarian (is that an oxymoron?) myself.

But something about a situation in which the consensus is so powerful makes one pause and wonder what could, would, and should have been done with a Jared Loughner, and who should have done it.

His parents seem to have had the highest responsibility, but maybe they tried and failed; after all, he was not a minor, although he still lived with them and one would think they had some leverage there.

His friends? The college? The police who escorted him out of school? It is unclear whether anyone had the power and inclination to change this although many were able to foresee it or at least something like it—if not in its details (who, what, where, how), then certainly in its general outlines.

The following is not a digression, although it may sound like it: about twenty years ago, when my husband and I were married and our child was small, we had a smallish dog. What a wonderful dog he was—friendly to all creatures, and usually very quiet. No yappy little dog was he. He never met a person he didn’t like—until one day, an old acquaintance of my husband’s came to visit.

My husband hadn’t seen him since high school, which had been a long time earlier. He called to tell us he was in town, and when he came to the door and we opened it, our dog growled.

I mean really growled. Snarled and bared his teeth and barked and barked and never let up. We had to put the dog in another room and close the door, and only then did he calm down. But it soon became apparent what had been going on with the dog, because it soon became apparent that our guest was unhinged.

Our visitor wasn’t dangerous. At least, he didn’t seem so to us; I’m not sure the dog, who clearly had methods beyond ours, shared our perception.

Who knows what it was the dog was picking up on? The whiff of madness? I think of the collective response to Jared Loughner as the equivalent of hundreds or even thousands of those dogs, all too polite to bark and snarl, but all sensing the same dangerous offness and the skewed mind that alerted them to the presence of danger.

[ADDENDUM: I didn’t read yesterday’s excellent post of Dr. Sanity’s until just now, but it’s highly relevant and well worth reading. Dr. Sanity has been in the trenches for decades, trying to predict the dangerousness of troubled and/or insane people, and she’s got a lot to say about how difficult it is.]