Once again, it’s been a while since I posted, and yes, I have been busy with life. However, with the firehose of stupidity coming out of Washington lately, it’s hard to have time to compose my thoughts about one outrage before there is yet another roaring down the pike at us.

I am physically nauseated every day watching the new national socialists (a.k.a., "progressives" or "Democrats" or "Republicans") move us ever closer to state corporatism. Forget Nancy “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire” Pelosi’s outrageous behavior, the President’s illegal firing of an inspector general to protect his cronies, the bed-wettingly frightening prospect of letting ACORN and Rahm Emanuel control the census, the biggest national deficit in our entire history, not as a country but as a species, the political deal to trade the safety of our troops for a hundred billion dollars we don’t have for the IMF and the media’s absolute complicity in all of it.

I want to talk about health care tonight.  Walk with me, won’t you, down the Primrose Path to our state-corporatist-socialist future.

Is or is it not true that health insurance is basically a bet with distributed risk? The insurance company (the house) collects your premium (stake), betting that you will not need a payout. Your bet is that you will. The insurance company collects the premiums of its entire client base and pays out of that pool, and takes some of the money to cover costs and to make a profit. The company also sets some rules to minimize its risk: no preexisting conditions, or higher premiums for clients with higher risks, etc.   The broad pool of clients makes for a large pool of money, facilitating the ability to cover costly procedures for what the company hopes will always be a small minority of its clients.

What the company doesn’t do very well, however, is negotiate prices for services rendered. Medical care providers, following the profit motive, will ask the highest price they think they can get. Since there is no real limit to how much can be paid, the very existence of the insurance companies inflate the price for medical care – the balance of supply and demand has shifted in favor of supply in this case.

Enter government. Against all common sense, but with the best of intentions, government decrees that health care providers must provide services to patients regardless of their ability to pay. Since the health care providers can’t bill people with no ability to pay, they recoup their costs by inflating their prices yet again so that the people who do pay through their insurance companies get stuck for a portion of the cost of caring for patients who can’t pay. It is an unofficial tax to support a social program that is levied and collected by the healthcare providers simply so they can remain in business.   Health care costs soar, premiums soar and now it is nearly impossible for anyone with a moderate income to afford health care and/or insurance.

Then government strikes again, this time with government-sponsored health (and now drug coverage) insurance like Medicare, Medicaid and TRICare. Because it’s the government and can’t be sued, the government simply says to the health care provider, “Okay, here’s what we’re willing to pay, take it or leave it.” Usually it’s only a small percentage of the actual bill, so the government stiffs the provider who has to either (1) raise their rates on everyone else to cover it, or (2) refuse to accept Medicare, Medicaid or TRICare. (That’s why so many doctors have stopped taking TRICare, leaving those patients dependent on less skilled, less-qualified or less-experienced doctors. Moreover, because of all this madness, small businesses that once could afford to pay for medical and dental insurance suddenly have to cease paying this benefit because it’s too expensive anymore, thereby adding more uninsured patients, once again increasing costs to everyone.

Now the government wants to create a single payer system. It’s not politically viable for them to say we’re taking over the health care system, so they say the government program won’t be a mandate, just an option available to people so everyone can have health insurance. (But wasn’t the creation of big health insurance programs the start of the problem to begin with? But I digress…) Oh, and by the way, to help pay for it, we’ll start taxing workers’ health care benefits. (Another Obama campaign lie). So now no small business can afford to pay the cost of insurance and the additional taxes, so the government program grows. Health insurance companies can’t compete with the efficiencies of scale that government has, so they quietly go bankrupt and out of business. 

Now we’re stuck with a huge government program and what will amount to the defense contractors of health care who will bid for government contracts. Since the government will determine what it is willing to pay, and because everyone will be on the health care dole by then, every hospital will look like Walter Reed: understaffed, with vast waiting rooms and horrible wait times. Forget nipping out for a couple of hours to see your doctor – you’re there for the day, baby, and that after waiting six months or more just to get an appointment.

Since the government won’t pay as well as they should, the skilled and qualified physicians will probably quit, leaving the field open to lesser doctors, increasing the risks of incompetence and malpractice. Can’t really blame the doctors, though. As Dr. Sanity put it on June 13th:

"I will simply not practice medicine anymore. I will take my psychiatry books and my years of experience and do something else. I used to wait tables when I was in college. It's an honest living and Obama isn't interested for the time being in nationalizing restaurants--yet.

"Let me be clear. I don't believe that people have a "right" to health care; because, what advocating such a "right" basically means is that you believe you have a "right" to my mind; you have a "right" to my professional competence; i.e., you have a "right" to enslave me."

In fact once you declare that health care is a “right,” you have declared it to be a “public good” like national defense. In that case, the only model that makes sense is to create a National Healthcare Service Corps, probably under the Department of Health, that is run the same way that the military services are and with the same corporate infrastructure to back it up – pharmaceutical and medical equipment labs vs. weapons labs. Now in addition to the military-industrial complex, you’ll be able to add a medical-industrial complex that’s just as inefficient and just as dependent upon and wasteful of trillions of taxpayer dollars as the lefties always want to accuse the DoD of being.

Personally I say screw ‘em. Lets do away with government health care programs and massive health insurance companies that do nothing except create a feeding frenzy for the corporate healthcare industry that inflates costs beyond all reason. ($12 for a couple of Tylenol? $350,000 or more for a month in hospital?) Let’s see what happens when we re-introduce actual market forces. Maybe, just maybe we’d get more healthcare professionals and more and better care rather than the rationing that will surely accompany a single-payer government-run system.

(Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin for the picture.)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I’m sorry about that.  Life intervenes, and we often lack all the time we would like – at least if we’re working for our family’s betterment instead of voluntarily sitting on our butt waiting for that support check.

All that aside, I saw a couple of items today that I had to post about. The first just for the sheer, jaw dropping surrealism, and the second because it’s the first ray of hope for America I’ve seen since November.

Item 1: From the American Thinker

“Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“’In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,’ Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“’In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.’

“Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, ‘Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.’

“Putin also echoed the words of conservative maverick Ron Paul when he said, ‘we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and ‘bad’ assets. True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalization, bonuses, or reputation. However, we would “conserve” and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets.’

I mean, what the hell kind of through-the-looking-glass world have we fallen into?

Item 2: Rick Santelli Rant on CNBC

 Select Transcript:
 

“The government is promoting bad behavior. We certainly don’t want to put stimulus forth and give people a whopping $8 or $10 in their check and think that they ought to save it.

“And in terms of modifications, I tell you what. I have an idea. The new administration is big on computers and technology. How about this,  President and new administration?

 “Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? Or would they like to at least buy cars, buy houses in foreclosure … give it to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that can carry the water instead of drink the water?

“This is America!

“How many people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, who has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?

“Raise your hands!

“President Obama, are you listening?

“You know Cuba used to have mansions and a relatively decent economy. They moved from the individual to the collective....Now they’re driving ‘54 Chevys.

 ...
 

“It’s time for another tea party.

 ...
 

“What we are doing in this country will make Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin roll over in their graves.”

? Where do I sign up? (Of course it would be Chicago, not Boston, and Lake Michigan, not Boston Harbor, and dumping …?  instead of tea…)

Cult of Personality (2009 update)

(With Apologies to Living Color)

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The Cult of Personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the Cult of Personality

Like Mussolini, (not Kennedy)
I’m the Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don’t "have" to follow me
Only you can set me free

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your T.V.
Oh, I’m the Cult of Personality

I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
Oh, I’m the Cult of Personality

Like Joseph Stalin, (not Ghandi)
I’m the Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
When a leader speaks, that leader lies
You don’t "have" to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the Cult of Personality

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of
Personality

“I saw the decade end, when it seemed the world could change in the blink of an eye…”

I was listening to Jesus Jones’ “Right Here, Right Now” from their 1991 album “Doubt,” yesterday, and thinking about that period of my life. The policies of Ronald Reagan, and his successor George H.W. Bush, defying their liberal critics, had defeated the Soviet Union, and freedom was breaking out in Russia and the Former Soviet Republics. I remembered the intense, giddy relief at the end of the tension that marked the Cold War, the end of the fear of a nuclear Armageddon, and my hope that the Russians and we could at last be friends instead of enemies. That time for me defined Hope and Change. It occurred to me, listening to Maya Angelou’s interview with Harry Smith on CBS, that black Americans must be feeling that same mélange of relief and triumph now that I felt then.

As I’ve walked about my place of employment the last few days, I’ve noticed something different. My coworkers of African descent seem to be walking a little taller and standing straighter. They are quicker with a smile and a friendly word, greeting me as we pass in the hallways with a nod that bespeaks a greater sense of confidence and esteem and real pride. I believe it has to do with the fact that finally, FINALLY, Americans of all ethnicities have elected a black to the highest office in the land, and finally blacks have a sense – a feeling – that they have arrived, that they are “real” Americans at last.

Perhaps Maya Angelou put this feeling into words best, in the above referenced interview:

“I'm so proud and filled, I can hardly talk without weeping. I'm so filled with pride for my country. What do you say? We are growing up. My God, I'm so grateful.... I mean, look at our souls, look at our hearts. We have elected a black man to talk for us, to speak for us. We, blacks, whites, Asians, Spanish-speaking, Native Americans, we have done it. Fat, thin, pretty, plain, gay, straight, we have done it. My Lord, I am an American, baby.”

I must admit with some embarrassment that I had never really noticed any lack of pride and confidence before in my black coworkers before the election of Mr. Obama, but its presence now makes its prior absence more conspicuous. For this gift, I rejoice with my black coworkers.

However, I find it more than somewhat sad that despite the end of slavery, despite the success of the civil rights movement, despite all that America has done to put citizens of African ancestry on an equal footing with those of European descent, it still took the election of Mr. Obama to make blacks like Dr. Angelou finally feel that they are Americans. I hate to have to tell you this, Dr. Angelou, but, uh, you were an American before Obama was even a gleam in his father’s eye.

I, and millions like me, have never thought of blacks as not Americans. We have always believed in Dr. King’s dream of a society and a nation in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”   Believing in this dream, we have made a moral and ethical decision never to look at the color of a person’s skin and prejudge them solely on that basis; but instead we have striven to look at their words, deeds and associations as an individual, and it is inconceivable to us that any rational, sane person would do or think any differently. For us, color-blindness is a good thing. We neither understand nor condone the politics of race.

Biological science shows us that there is no such thing as race. You wouldn’t speak of “races” with any other species, despite color variations among their members. We are one species with a number of color variations that represent adaptations to differing environments. That’s it.

“Race” is only a convenient socio-political distinction without a difference. It is a social construction that merely allows one group to easily identify another group for scapegoating. For proof, look at the 2007 Salon.com article about Mr. Obama not being “authentically black:”

“‘Black,’ in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both ‘black’ as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term.”

By this logic then, neither I, nor my family, nor any of the other hundreds of millions of descendents of European immigrants who were never slaveholders can be considered “authentically white.” And if that’s the case, then none of us has any cause to feel any “white guilt.” Nor do we have any cause to treat blacks with any special favor or disfavor. We owe them nothing, save the basic respect due to any other human being.

Imagine our shock and outrage, then, when despite our best efforts to keep race from being a factor in our dealings with our fellow citizens, we inauthentic whites of European descent are incessantly accused of being racist.   Certain blacks constantly throw their skin color into the national discussion as if that trait alone qualifies them for special preference. In short, we inauthentic whites of European descent are tired of having our skin color used to identify us as scapegoats for the culturally based social and economic failures of non-white individuals – in America or anywhere else. 

Just like race, class is also socially constructed. As I have tried to point out on this blog for years, the Marxist-Liberal politics of the left wing of the Democratic Party are the politics of envy. Politicians like this constantly reinforce the socially constructed differences among us and then claim that differences in group identity are the root cause of the unjust privation of some and the unjust success of others, rather than differences in individual actions. It is the politics of something-for-nothing; the politics of taking from those that have (who earned it) to give to those who have not (and have done nothing to earn it). It is the mistaken belief that everyone has a right to everything they want but has no commensurate responsibility to work for it. It is the politics of social control, in which people voluntarily give up their personal liberty along with their personal responsibility. As Benjamin Franklin said: “Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

So let me be as clear as I possibly can be: I care not what color Mr. Obama is. His skin color is a distinction without a difference. Only to the extent that today’s descendants of former slaves of African ancestry feel better about themselves, to the extent that they will finally start thinking of themselves as Americans, vice hyphenated Americans, to the extent that his Presidency can begin healing our self-inflicted political wounds, does Mr. Obama’s skin color matter.

Unfortunately, I suspect that in their excitement at FINALLY being able to elect a “black” man to the office of the President, over 60 million Americans utterly failed to consider his other – more important – individual traits: his belief in Socialism, his fundamental lack of belief in the ideals of the American Constitution, his rejection of the values of personal responsibility, and his association with men and women who actively hate all that America has (often imperfectly) stood for and symbolized. His openly stated policy plans show this:

In one fell blow, Obama would force millions of American children into involuntary servitude, placing the left’s objective of raising “social consciousness” above the serious and already challenged business of actually educating them.

Obama would, like Hillary Clinton, “take those profits” of the oil companies through taxation and redistribute them to lower income Americans who have done nothing to earn them.

Obama also would seek passage of the once already defeated Matthew Shepard Act, which would essentially criminalize thoughts; punishing people for their thoughts in addition to punishing them for their deeds by creating an entire new class of “hate crimes.”

Sadly also I fear that Mr. Obama’s ascendancy will not mean the end of racially motivated hatred among blacks, as evidenced by statements by Harvard law professor (and plagiarist) Charles Ogletree, who seems to believe that even Obama’s election is not evidence of the end of white racism, because Obama is half white.

I fear that the country I grew up in, for whose revolutionary history and ideals I have felt such unabashed pride and love, will be no more than a cherished memory if Mr. Obama and the leftists now holding the majority in Congress are able to use the mechanism of representative democracy to deceive a majority of Americans into surrendering their liberty for the sake of envy.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average an Obama voter."

"From Stettin in the Baltic Manhattan on the Atlantic to Trieste in the Adriatic Los Angeles on the Pacific, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon." 
 
"Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft."

"In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

"Never give up, never give up, never, never, never give up."

As Sean Hannity says, we are witnessing the death of journalism in this country:

Halloween Palin Prop Sparks Controversy In WeHo

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) ― A Halloween decoration showing a mannequin dressed as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose from the roof of a West Hollywood home is drawing giggles from some passers-by and gasps of outrage from others.

The mannequin is dressed in brunet wig, glasses and a red business suit. Another mannequin dressed as John McCain emerges from a flaming chimney.

Chad Michael Morisette, who lives in the house, told CBS 2 News that drivers and bus passengers have been stopping to snap pictures of the macabre scene.

Morisette says the effigy would be out of bounds at any other time of year, but it’s within the spirit of Halloween.

He says “it should be seen as art, and as within the month of October. It’s Halloween, it’s time to be scary it’s time to be spooky.”

And just earlier this year a sports reporter and a golf magazine editor lost their jobs because the former used the word “lynch” in a jocular reference to an African-American athlete, and the latter approved the use of the image of a noose on the magazine’s cover with regard to a popular African-American golfer (who apparently wasn't offended anyway).

 
Guess it’s okay to advocate lynching conservative white women though. (h/t to S&L)

 
And now the piéce de résistance (h/t to Michelle Malkin):