Does government-run healthcare prove we're undeserving of liberty?

This week, ABC (the All Barack Channel) is teaming up with President Obama to blanket Wednesday's broadcast day with hours of propaganda for his communist health care proposal. And the more I think about a government-run health care system, the more I want to vomit. I cannot for the life of me understand how so many of my fellow Americans have gleefully resigned their independence en masse to a nanny-state government who is more than willing to step in and seize control of every aspect of our lives in exchange for liberty.

Is Medicare so wonderful and efficient that everyone now wants to get in line for it? Is our V.A. system a shining example of how health care should be handled? If these government programs are already rife with waste and inadequate care (and they are), why would anybody be so stupid as to believe a NEW government department will handle things any differently? Constitutionality aside, allowing the government - which is allowed to operate with deficits - to compete with private industry which must operate by the rules simply guarantees that many companies will be put out of business by the federal juggernaut. Our health care choices will decrease, our care will be rationed and decisions regarding care will be made by unelected and unaccountable government bureaucrats. Not to mention the fact that an enormous new Cabinet-level department of the United States government will ensure an ever-increasing tax debt for future generations.

While doing a little reading about the subject of liberty, I came upon an interesting quote from 17th century British poet, historian and Whig politician Thomas Macaulay:

"Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water 'til he had learned to swim."

By Macaulay's reckoning, 52% of America is loaded with people who don't know how to swim, refuse to learn, and demand that our government provide them with $1 trillion dollar water wings and a massive new bureaucracy to keep them inflated.

Sen. Barbara Boxer imitates Dr. Evil

Barbara Boxer (D) would have to work REALLY hard to beclown herself more than she did this week when she chided Brigadier Gen. for calling her "Ma'am."

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was testifying on the Louisiana coastal restoration process in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He began to answer one of Boxer's questions with "ma'am" when Boxer immediately cut him off.

"You know, do me a favor," an irritated Boxer said. "Could say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?'"

"Yes, ma'am," Walsh interjected.

"It's just a thing, I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it, yes, thank you," she said.

"Yes, senator," he responded.

However, Walsh surely meant no disrespect, as military protocol advises that officers may use "sir" or "ma'am" when addressing anybody higher than them on the chain of command.

Maybe he should've just addressed her more accurately as "pretentious bitch."

Coming this fall from Government Motors...

The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition!

"The Letter" to our government

I've been so busy over the past week, either freelancing or getting ready for my daughter's wedding this weekend, that I just haven't had time to blog. However, this was simply too good not to pass along. It's a letter that was sent in to Glenn Beck, and it pretty much sums up how I feel about the direction our government has taken over the past few years and is currently heading under President Obama and his Democrat-led Congress.

GLENN: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership: I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

If you're like me and this letter speaks for you, check out Glenn Beck's website to show your support (and you can find out more about the letter's author, Janet Contreras).

Dr. Obama's prescription for America?

Last year, candidate Obama made a big deal about creating a nationalized health care program which would "...give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." Of course, what he failed to mention was that the figure he cited includes American citizens as well as illegal immigrants. And the fact that it will cost well over $1 trillion dollars (which we do not have) to provide health insurance for everyone.

That could be part of the reason why Chairman Obama is now saying, "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done." The more we find out about the Democrats' plan to seize control of our health care industry, the less likely we'll be to go along with it. Dems know how toxic such a blatantly anti-American plan will be during an election year. So, like a bunch of stereotypical oily-haired car salesmen, they're pulling out every trick in the book to pressure Americans to sign on the dotted line and walk out with the health care equivalent of a used Yugo.

This past weekend, the President ginned up the rhetoric to candy-coat this most recent attempt to further his Soviet-style makeover for America:

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Barack Obama declared that “it’s time to deliver” on health care reform. In a letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), President Obama wrote, “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

Great. There's that word again: choice. Only it's NOT choice, it's government control of private industry. What he's proposing would have the government (who makes the rules) competing against the private sector (who must abide by those rules) to provide health care to everyone in America. Ed Morrissey put it plainly: "government insurance will kill private insurance."

Government doesn’t exist to turn a profit, nor does it face competition. That’s why, in part, government operates so inefficiently. We put up with that in certain areas, like the military, because we don’t want private groups arming themselves with tanks, bombers, and armies and navies. In most other areas, we prefer the private sector, as competition usually gets us the best products and services at the best prices.

Government exists to service its interests, at least in its present form. Mostly, it serves to further itself. Any government bureaucracy that sees danger in competition will work to eliminate it. The dynamic in health-care plans would not be government making private insurers “more honest”, but in squeezing them out of the marketplace to create a monopoly. Since government doesn’t have to show a profit to exist, it will simply low-ball the other insurers on price until they all drop out of the health-care field.

Even if you ignore the staggering costs for such a ridiculous undertaking (which Obama has already admitted he plans to fund by taxing health care benefits), and the inevitable rationing of health care, there's still the unconstitutional nature of the government's seizure of 17% of our gross domestic product – the federal government has NO right to hijack our medical industry. The 10th Amendment (remember the Constitution?) is pretty clear on this:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Last time I check, there is no right to health insurance written anywhere by our Founders. Which leaves health care – and health insurance – in the hands of the states and the American people. Sure, we've got plenty of problems with the imperfect system we have now. But to chuck it out the window in favor of a system built upon such historical failures as the Soviet Union, we'd need to have our heads examined.

And with government-run health care, the cost for such an extensive exam is just too great.

D-Day, 65 years later

65 years ago today, American troops stormed Normandy's Omaha Beach in the largest amphibious assault in the history of warfare (29,000 American soldiers dead, 106,000 wounded and missing).

In 1984, President Reagan gave a stirring speech at Pointe Du Huc where he honored the U.S. Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion who triumphed after losing more than 60% of their men valiantly scaling the 100ft cliffs under heavy Nazi fire.

The world owes a colossal debt of gratitude to all the men and women who unflinchingly stared evil squarely in the face and selflessly gave of themselves in the name of freedom. Luckily this struggle didn't occur in modern times, as the mainstream media would have certainly handled things differently than their counterparts in 1944.



Earlier this year, President Obama couldn't be bothered to honor America's war dead at Normandy when he visited the area, fearing he would offend the Germans by doing so. Luckily, The One took time from genuflecting before the world's Muslim population to attend D-Day services today.

Newsweek reporter says Obama is God

Um, wow.

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas and Chris "leg thrill" Matthews officially disqualify themselves from being objective journalists when they publicly admitted their membership in the Church of Obama.

VAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn’t felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We’re seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We’re not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean, in a way, Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

THOMAS: He’s going to bring all different sides together.

Well, they're partially correct; Obama plans to bring all sides together...under the iron fist of his administration.

Religion of Peace update: Contrast in response

Just for grins, Google "pro-life denounce Tiller murder."

Now Google "Muslims denounce recruiter murder."