Socialized medicine and morality

The latest tactic the socialists are deploying to sell socialized medicine is saying "It's the right thing to do."

OK. Right now, children and the elderly are entirely covered by entitlement programs for health care. The poor have Medicaid. Anyone -- including illegal aliens -- can walk into a hospital emergency room and get as much health care as they need.

In addition, all socialized medicine does is reduce the resources available for health care (more about this later) and then spread around whatever is left among more and more people. What this does is lower the quality of care, ensuring that no one but the very rich will have access to the best doctors and facilities. And it will result in eliminating a lot of research and innovation for the development of new -- better and cheaper -- medical procedures and practices.

How is that moral?

I stated before, private insurance companies take the pool created by the premiums paid to them by the insured and invest that pool in other businesses, in stock, even in T-bills, in order to enlarge it. That makes more money available to pay for health care, and it also makes capital available to other businesses inside and outside the health care industry.

How is that immoral? Unless you cling to the superstition that making money and profits is inherently evil somehow.

I don't generally like Howard Dean. I think he's a little crazy and probably a little dangerous. Apart from that, he looks like this jerk I knew in high school. Anyway, he stated the other night that the reason tort reform is NOT a part of the reform bills proposed in congress is because congress doesn't want to make enemies of trial lawyers. Hell, half the people in congress are trial lawyers.

Well, let's look at the morality of trial lawyers.... otherwise known as "ambulance chasers." You've seen the ads on TV: "Have you suffered a slip or fall at work?" Hinting that even if this is something you've completely recovered from, you might still be able to sue. "Have you ever been exposed to asbestos?" Then they list a couple dozen industries that ever used asbestos for anything. Asbestos is an old one. Most of the businesses that worked with asbestos were sued into bankruptcy decades ago... So file your case now while there's still any money left to claim.

Trial lawyers are those who look for misery -- or at least someone who can put on a good show of it -- then sue for medical expenses and huge "punitative damages." Like that silly woman who spilled a cup of hot coffee in her lap then sued McDonald's for $4 million. (Her award was reversed by a higher court, if I recall correctly.)

A few years ago when my car was brand new, I was driving back from a trip to Gettysburg. Got to the Chicago area on I-294 (sort of a beltway), and spent an hour trying to stay out of the "traps" created around me to cause an accident that would look like my fault. It goes like this: A big panel van got behind me, riding my bumper. Then a fairly new car got in front and kept stopping suddenly and for no apparent reason. I was supposed to rear-end the car in front of me so they could sue me.

See, my car was brand new; I had to be insured. This set-up occurred four times within a drive of about 35 miles on the interstate -- same black van behind me riding my tail so I'd be reluctant to stop abruptly, same Toyota four-door in front, intermittently and arbitrarily slamming on the brakes.

I veered into the next lane a couple times to avoid an accident, and at one point just slammed on my brakes, figuring what the heck, I'll get that black van behind me to rear-end me and collect on his insurance. But when I braked suddenly and glanced up at the rear-view mirror, that van was a safe distance behind me, apparently slowing down before I did. Like maybe the driver was psychic or something and expected to stop?

This is an old scam, easily recognizable. Trial lawyers take on these suits and collect 30% of whatever is awarded to the "victims." Trial lawyers have even been known to hire people to make these situations occur. Fraud, of course, but hey, it's a living.

Because of the pay-outs on this kind of fraud and the cost-shifting that results from the government paying only what it wants to pay for Medicare and Medicaid services, the insurance industry is being pressured all around. It's amazing insurance companies have been able to survive as well as they have.

And the way I see it, the insurance industry is the only moral player in this scenario -- the only people trying to make a really honest profit.

But American liberals are driven primarily by an unidentified but prevalent sense of guilt for.... something. Or for anything you care to name. Like, children in Africa are starving. Not the fault of lunatic warlords; no, the real problem is that America isn't doing enough for them. Liberals volunteer for victimhood. They believe it ensures a place in heaven for them. Or something. But they only rarely think things through.

Many of those who are uninsured in the USA are uninsured because they want to be. All the other bases are covered. So tell me how it's "moral" to wreck the quality of care currently available to those who actually pay for insurance in order to offer coverage to those who don't want it and won't pay for it.

I fail to see the logic.

Or, do it for Teddy Kennedy. That's a can of worms I don't even want to touch. Let's just say, Teddy was in a position to personally do something for the poor and indigent, and instead he chose to try to compel the government to do it for him. It protects his own fortune and he still gets to win the title of Do-Gooder (as long as we all agree to turn a blind eye to his whole personal history.)

All right. So in the name of Milton Friedman -- who's also dead, and who also had a very powerful impact on American society, and a much more positive one, too -- let's hold out for a free market solution.

Health reform: Over whose dead body?

Managed to catch parts of most of the Sunday morning political shows. They all talked about health reform, at least a little.

Something I found amusing on George Stephanopoulos' show was that he had Paul Krugman and Robert Reisch on -- a couple of the biggest liberal-economic guns around -- and these two guys didn't seem to make much sense, except to each other. Even Stephanopoulos challenged some of their statements, which may serve as an indicator that the liberal media is considering bailing out of its unconditional support of The Comrade's radical "reforms." I mean, if Krugman and Reisch don't even make sense to George Stephanopoulos....

Or maybe it's just that Stephanopoulos' ratings are going down so he's trying to look objective. I don't know. And since I really don't listen to the network news or network commentary very often, the liberal spokesmen on these shows always sound to me like they're visiting the USA from some far-distant nation. They make all kinds of cultural references that just go completely over my head. Like George Will noted that many people were questioning the effectiveness of the "Stimulus" bill, and Krugman and Reisch smiled gleefully at each other and said, in unison, that the $787 billion package just wasn't big enough.

What?

I mean, only about 10% of that $787 billion has even been spent. I can only assume that the Krugman-Reisch response was straight out of the radical left catechism. That is, whenever someone claims a big government program isn't working, you automatically declare that the big government program just wasn't big enough. Like saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes.

So the "This Week" experience was something like that. Mostly I just wonder if having a scraggly beard has now become part of the uniform for far left economics people.

I don't understand the double-speak and don't care to learn it. At one time I used to try to figure it out -- spent lots of time reading people like Kant and looking for something deep in Pascal. After all, these guys were supposed to be pretty bright. They were supposed to have some kind of valuable insights.

However, after much torturous reading and thinking, it seems that these guys -- among others -- are either so blockheaded they're making a big deal out of a commonplace observation, or they went so far out on a limb they have to invent some alternative reality just to have something to apply it to. (Noumenals, anyone? Or is it noumenes? Something like that.) So I've come to rely on the notion that if someone's premises -- that is, the foundation of their argument -- is not perceivable reality, there's not much point in figuring out how they arrived at their conclusions.

This is all a convoluted way of saying: When you build on shaky ground, your building will not stand for long.

Like, if your central economic challenge is the marxist "How can we redistribute other peoples' wealth?" instead of on the more practical "How can human beings produce enough to sustain themselves?" we're not going to come to any kind of agreement anyway. The problem that marxists have with reality is their basic premise that "other people" will always have wealth to redistribute. The simple fact is, marxism pretty much eliminates the possibility of wealth all together, replacing it with the meanest subsistence, if that.

But what really worries me is that many Democrats and other leftists are making a lot of noise about passing HR3200 or a reasonable socialist facsimile of it whether or not it has public support. Some of the Democrats seem to be threatening this, or at least reminding the Republicans in congress and the general population that they have a majority in both houses and can do whatever they damn please.

What was it that Jefferson said? "When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear the government, you have tyranny."

Or something like that.

Are the Democrats bluffing or are they genuinely prepared to wreck the republic? I can't imagine anyone who took an oath to defend the Constitution would violate the public trust simply in order to win brownie points with Pazzo Pelosi or Comrade Osama. That's just beyond consideration... and beneath contempt. Presidents and Speakers of the House come and go, after all. The USA was designed to be a bit more durable.

Like many others, I'll be sure to look up and download the exact vote for HR3200 or any socialist-medicine bill -- including the soon-to-be-announced re-write of HR3200 with all different language but no substantial changes.

I'm not a big fan of generic "Republicans," but at least they're organized. So I'm looking for a huge Republican sweep in the 2010 elections. It's absolutely required. It's starting to look like the only way we can disarm The Comrade and save the nation.

Health reform debate, Chicago-style

I'm a US history buff. One field I'm obviously very interested in is politics. I don't mean the broad sociopolitical movements, but the gory details, like how did they do it?

For instance, up until the late 1800s, we didn't have a secret ballot for voting in the USA. You picked and submitted a ballot by color -- the color corresponding to the party and/or candidate, provided by the party and/or candidate -- and everyone knew who you were voting for. This gave rise to all kinds of political thuggery and intimidation.

For example, Baltimore was pretty well known for political gangs -- most of which had no particular ideological preference, they just worked for whomever paid them the most. And apparently they were quite creative. One gang was known as "The Blood Tubs" for an innovation they put into place during an election. That is, a couple gang members positioned themselves outside the polling place with a big washtub full of pig's blood. Depending on who you voted for -- or didn't vote for -- you might be dunked in the tub.

Baltimore in the 1860s was very conflicted. Maryland was a slave state, but Baltimore was north of Washington DC, the Union capitol, and the city was host to as many northern industial interests (shipping, manufacturing, transportation) as it was to southern interests (growing tobacco and hemp, raising horses.) So when the bombardment of Fort Sumter set off the Civil War, and Abe Lincoln made his initial appeal for 75,000 volunteers "to put down the rebellion," many of the volunteers from the northern states had to take the trains through Baltimore to get to Washington. Maryland, being a slave state and at the time not committed to the Union or Confederacy either way, was in a quandary.

On the one hand, the railroads ran through Baltimore, no way around that; on the other hand, no one in the federal government even bothered to ask Maryland or Baltimore if Yankee soldiers could swarm across their boundaries. So when the first trainloads of soldiers began traipsing through Baltimore, riots broke out. Really bad riots. One Yankee soldier was beaten to death on the street and something like 100 other people were killed or wounded.

Supposedly the riots were set off by one or another political gang. Quite possibly The Blood Tubs, though the Blood Tubs ended up eventually supporting the Union. They policed the harbor, as I understand it.

Martin Scorsese's movie, "Gangs of New York," was about this very subject. As factual history, the movie was only so-so, but New York City did have gangs, like most other northern cities. In New York, many of them provided labor pools for Tammany Hall politicians who recruited gangs either to strong-arm political opponents in the fashion of Baltimore's Blood Tubs, or to take patronage jobs and support Boss Tweed and his pals.

Anyway, supposed "Chicago-style politics" is nothing new in the USA and the phenomenon never was confined to Chicago. Chicago may be one of the last really great practitioners of it, but from what I've heard from friends in other cities, I doubt it.

So I'll impart a few things that go on pretty routinely in Chicago politics, but always with the reservation that these are not exclusively Chicago tactics. In fact, Chicago probably learned them from older cities Back East. Oh, and by the way, for all intents and purposes, there is only one political party in Chicago -- the Democrats. Chicago goes through the motions of campaigns and elections and all, but really, whoever wins the Democrat primary in virtually any election is for all intents and purposes, The Winner.

Suppose you have a Democrat running uncontested in one ward or congressional district. Then maybe someone calling himself a Republican or Green Party candidate, or Libertarian, manages to collect enough petition signatures to get his/her name on the election ballot. There are several things the Democrats can do:

1.) Offer the potential opponent a city job. This is essentially a pay-off. It will be a do-nothing job, probably, but I would guess about half of all city workers in Chicago don't do much of anything.

2.) Challenge the signatures on the petitions. It's free. Any ol' citizen can stroll into City Hall and claim that the Green Party candidate has a lot of phony signatures on their ballot petitions. So the Green Party then has to check all the signatures -- maybe 25,000 of them for a congressional district -- against voter registration records. You might have 15 or 20 signatures on a page, and if any one signature is proven bogus, the whole page gets discarded. So it's usually a good idea to collect about 25% or more signatures than are required. Both getting the signatures and checking them takes time and can cost a lot of money. One way to make your opponent go broke before the campaign begins. It strangles the opposition in red tape.

3.) Whisper Campaign. If the opponent actually gets on the ballot, or even if s/he's a Democrat challenging the established Machine, you can tell some whopping big lies about him/her to derail their campaign. The Machine did this to Harold Washington when he ran for mayor. The Machine didn't want him -- in Chicago, African-Americans don't call the shots; they're supposed to just tow the party line. Anyway, I know people now who still believe Harold Washington wore ladies' underwear. That was one element of the whisper campaign against him. This type of thing is especially hard to defeat because no one makes any accusations out loud, they just spread rumors. The candidate usually doesn't want to repeat and publicize the rumors, so the lies create a sort of perennial cloud of uncertainty around him.

4.) A simple suggestion. About 30 years ago, after the 1980 census if I recall, a new congressional district was gerrymandered in Chicago to create a Hispanic district. Kinda strange, because Chicago is host to several different cultural groups that are Spanish-speaking, including South Americans, Cubans and Mexicans, and these groups don't have much else in common except that they speak Spanish. Anyway, there was no incumbent in this brand new district, and about five people threw their hats in the ring for the Democrat primary. (Remember, the person who wins the primary, wins, period.) Anyway, a friend of mine volunteered to work for one of these candidates. She wasn't especially interested in politics, but was getting college credits for participating. So she answered phones and stuffed envelopes at Candidate X's storefront campaign HQ.

One evening some guy came in and started chatting with the campaign workers. He was saying Candidate X didn't have a shot against Candidate Y, who was backed by the Machine. He said Candidate X was just wasting everyone's time and misleading the public and he should just drop out of the race. It was hopeless anyway. I suppose he got some happy talk back from the volunteers -- some of them were committed to Candidate X. And the guy didn't seem too ruffled by it, just went on and on about how Candidate X should drop out of the race. He wasn't convincing anyone, but wasn't really causing a problem... they were just talking.

Then the guy just opened his overcoat to show that he had a gun in the waistband of his pants. He didn't say anything about it, just wanted to make sure all the volunteers saw it. Then he said a pleasant "good night" and left, having delivered his message. I figure the candidate must have looked like he could have successfully challenged the Machine's favorite, but we'll never know....

5.) Public protests. This tactic usually works best for labor unions or organizations like Jesse Jackson's old Operation Push. Basically you organize a noisy and embarrassing public protest -- usually around lunch time in The Loop downtown when there are a lot people on the streets and TV news crews can film the protest and interview the leaders in time to get on the evening news. This is done all over.

One case I know of firsthand, because I covered it as a journalist, involved complaints about a large Chicago-based company laying off a bunch of mostly African-American workers. OK. They'd been hired for only a few months for one particular project. In fact, every year for more than 10 years the company hired workers for this one particular project. If the workers were black, that was probably not by design; those were the people who applied for the job. Anyway, one or another organization protested and accused the company of racism and all that, and even threatened to boycott this company's customers.

As a journalist, I interviewed one of the company executives some time later, after the company had met with the protesters and their leaders and "come to an agreement." The agreement was, the company donated $5 million to this organization. The company didn't create any permanent jobs for the workers; in fact, the company shut down the facility and moved out of the city a couple years later. But the organization -- or its leaders, anyway -- got its $5 million. The settlement wasn't publicized, and the executive I interviewed told me the terms only after I promised not to report them. The company was fearful of some kind of reprisals from the protesting organization.

And you see, none of this type of thing is limited to Chicago. It's extortion, thuggery, strong-arming, intimidation, bribery.... It's just politics as usual.

Matter of fact, Mike Royko, a Chicago newspaper columnist who wrote a lot about local politics, used to say that Chicagoans didn't give a damn what kind of games the politicians played, as long as the city picked up the trash and plowed the snow in winter. He was right. Nobody cared who was being pummeled or ostracized as long as the politicians left the public alone. And that seems to be the key: Leave the public alone.

What I find interesting about the current nationwide conflict over socialized medicine is that -- none of these politics-as-usual tactics seem to be working, and The Comrade doesn't seem to understand why not. Socialized medicine is, in its own way, a sort of huge bribery scheme to win the support of the middle class and keep them voting for you. Like Tammany Hall hiring the Irish gangs as New York City cops 130 years ago or so.

But the middle class doesn't seem to be buying into the scheme. They mainly just want to be left alone with their existing health insuance, or lack of it. So now The Comrade, Pelosi, and all their Merry Men are going around trying to browbeat and initimidate the insurance companies, AARP, etc etc... But the general public still isn't buying into the program.

What's a gang of scheming, corrupt, self-serving, lying, arm-twisting thugs to do in such a case?

Maybe just give it up, get real jobs, and -- yes, please -- leave the rest of us alone.

Free market myths and lies

It's very late -- or actually very early -- and I'm listening to this talk radio show. A guy just called in and said something like, "The executives of government-funded free market businesses shouldn't get bonuses."

What's wrong with this picture?

If an enterprise is "government-funded" it ain't "free market." That's like saying your bull had a baby.

Listening to a lot of chatter for weeks now about the "stimulus" bill, cap-and-tax, the GM takeover, bank bail-outs, etc., it occurs to me that most people haven't got any idea what free enterprise or capitalism is. They seem to look at it as some kind of virtual bank with limitless resources where they can draw funds forever and never run out.

So anyway, if a company, an industry, or any type of initiative is government-funded, government-regulated, or established by the government, it's not strictly "free enterprise."

Just because an organization might be privately-owned, like the pharmaceutical companies, doesn't mean it's free enterprise. The pharmas, for example, are so heavily regulated by the FDA and heaven only knows how many other regulatory agencies, they survive pretty much on the good graces of the government. They kiss a lot of rings. They're allowed to make only a few of their own decisions.

Relative to health care reform, the insurance industry also is very highly regulated. One of the reasons citizens of one state may not have more than two or three insurance carriers to choose from is because every state has its own insurance regulatory board, and these boards impose the terms under which any insurance company can do business in the state. These regulations can include things like insisting that every health insurance policy include coverage for maternity costs or fertility treatments. Well, older families probably wouldn't need this, but the state requires they buy it, anyway, as part of their general health coverage.

Worse, some of these companies are so in bed with state regulators, they enjoy almost monopoly status -- which has often led to all kinds of corruption and intrigue. The situation certainly is not "free enterprise" or "free market."

One way this state-level regulation seriously skews insurance availability and costs/prices, is apparent in places like North or South Dakota and Wyoming, all states with relatively small populations. How many people do you suppose have, say, leukemia, in Wyoming? Let's say two dozen. OK. So you've got two dozen leukemia sufferers in a pretty small population. Costs for leukemia treatments will be divided up amongst the population, so those leukemia sufferers are going to send the rates for everyone through roof. So the leukemia sufferers are denied coverage.

OK. So the government might fund health care for the leukemia people. But another, free market solution would be to create a region that includes Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and maybe North and South Dakota, so that the costs for the leukemia sufferers are spread among many more people in the pool and the costs are more affordable.

I may be making a fool of myself discussing this, because I'm not an actuarial and have only a very vague idea how insurance companies calculate risk. I'm way over-simplifying. For instance, when you expand the number of people covered, you're also taking on the additonal risks the larger population brings with it. But the more people you have paying into the pool, the lower the cost for everyone.

This, I believe, is the real reason the liberals want to nationalize health care. Medicare is broke; Medicaid is broke. They think if they can expand the pool of people covered by Medicare/Medicaid to include every insured person in the entire US population, they can cover costs.

However, Medicare and Medicaid are not "insurance." Rather, they provide health care coverage for certain groups in the population -- they're entitlement programs. Actual "insurance" has another dimension beyond simply spreading costs.

Here's how it works: Insurance companies collect premiums from their members, then they take that money and invest it to grow a capital fund. This capital fund is what supports the pay-outs on insurance claims. It's like if you and me and Bobby McGee all put in $100 dollars. We take our pool of $300 and invest it in MacDonalds stock, and over a few months, we have $500. That $500 dollars is what will pay for our health expenses.

Another, bad example: AIG is an insurance company that went bust on crappy investments in things like junk mortgages and bizarre derivatives from Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac -- supposed "businesses" underwritten by the federal government.

By contrast, Medicare and Medicaid are not insurance companies at all. Rather, they're entitlement programs. They are essentially a type of welfare. They're funded by tax monies collected from program users and all other taxpayers. And the government has no means of "growing a capital fund" to pay the claims. All the government can do to raise money is to raise taxes.

So we're talking about two different things here. First, insurance is a profit-making enterprise; insurance actually produces something.... capital... which is invested in all kinds of things to earn a return and to literally "make" money. In this way, insurance companies are similar to banks.

Second, Medicare/Medicaid are not productive business enterprises at all; they're tax-funded public entitlement programs.

By eliminating profit-making insurance businesses and replacing them with an ever-expanding government-funded entitlement program, the only result will be... a reduced pool for capital for investment in other businesses and in things like municipal bonds, more poverty for all, tighter credit, higher taxes, less overall economic growth.

The very fact that Comrade Osama and his cohorts equate private insurance with public entitlement programs is a flashing red light that indicates they don't have a clue about what they're talking about -- or maybe they do.

By trying to destroy private insurance, they're essentially eliminating a significant means of capital formation for investment in private enterprise and capitalist economic growth. They're killing one of the geese that lays the golden eggs, destroying free market capitalism. They've already taken control of much of the banking industry, which is also an engine for capital formation.

See why I believe The Comrade is a marxist? His targets are so calculated to destroy free enterprise. He took over the bigger banks and now he's going after the insurance industry. I can't believe it's all the result of accident or ignorance, and it's certainly not altlruistic concern for his fellow man. No true marxist gives a damn about the human race, except as props for his personal vision of Utopia. After all, it was a marxist who said, "You must break eggs to make an omelet."

Let's not be the eggs.

Health reform lies and damned lies

Oh dear, I knew I'd get upset if I looked at the White House's "myths" page. I should have continued to avoid it. I'll give myself a heart attack... but at least right now I could still get to a hospital. That may not be possible in the future.

Sat through most of the video at the White House site that I believe is titled something like, "Will there be rationing?" A lady with an Indian name, who says she's a doctor but somehow ended up as a White House public relations flak-catcher, tells us that, as Comrade Osama promises, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it."

That is a complete lie. Has this person not read the bill? Or perhaps she's lost in Osama's Hope & Change Fantasyland, where there's this perfect Utopian reform bill that no one has seen yet. Maybe he'll let congress have a peek at it before Pazzo Pelosi schedules the vote on it, but I wouldn't bet any money on that.

In the first 50 pages of HR3200, there's a long and rather tedious discussion of the Health Insurance Exchange, which will set up standards to mandate certain types of coverage in basic, intermediate, and cadillac health insurance categories. (The bill's wording is different. Probably such tortured bureaucratese my mind just refuses to retain it.)

Anyway, if your current coverage meets these yet-to-be-determined standards, maybe you can keep it.... If your employer can continue to pay for it, if your insurance carrier continues to offer it and submits it to the approval process of the federal Health Care Kommissariat that the bill sets up, etc. etc.

Medicare is being changed, altered in several ways, and not all positive for recipients. Medicaid is being altered through the states. Apparently if you have a Health Savings Account with insurance for catastrophic coverage and/or hospitalization, that will no longer be allowed.

In addition, HR3200 even names and defines "grandfathered" insurance coverage -- which are the existing insurance policies currently offered to employees by many corporations and other employers. "Grandfathered" means that this coverage has been marked to be phased out by HR3200. So I guess you can keep your copy of your existing insurance policy if you want, even if your actual insurance plan has been "grandfathered out" and doesn't exist anymore. Think of it as souvenir of better times.

I'm sorry, none of the above indicates that citizens will be able to keep their insurance if they like it. Rather, it tells me that the federal government is going to determine what kind of insurance it thinks we all need and how much we're going to pay for it. Because, by the way, the feds setting rates for insurance premiums is in the bill, too.

OK. Without going any further into the deep weeds of HR3200, it very plainly states that you will not be able to keep the insurance you have if only because it will no longer be available. It may/may not be government-approved, and if it's not government-approved, it won't meet the government requirement for having a government-approved insurance policy -- and that requirement is in the bill.

This doctor on the White House vid adds insult to injury. She says, "Trust me, you'll be able to keep the insurance you have."

Yeah, right. She says, "I'm flat-out straight-up lying to your face, but 'trust me.'"

Hey, anybody want to buy a nice plot of land in Florida? Or maybe the Brooklyn Bridge? Trust me, I can get it for you wholesale.

And, by the way, you can compare the health reform bills side-by-side at this web site: http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm . It's the Kaiser Foundation.

Blowing smoke on health care reform

Went to the AARP.org website just to see what they're saying about health care reform. The Comrade noted at one town hall that AARP backed HR3200. Apparently AARP heard some loud booing from their membership, and one guy cut up his AARP membership card on the Fox early morning show less than 24 hours later. So then AARP issued a statement saying something like, "We certainly probably might or might not back the president's plan."

So yesterday, the Comrade stated once again that AARP backs his plan. WTF?

One commentator suggested that while a lot of people will hear the Comrade make this claim, not so many will hear the AARP's denial. And after reviewing the AARP web site, I do believe they are on board with the Comrade and all his marxist cronies.

AARP has launched a web site and apparently will be running TV ads supporting generic "Health Care Reform." Then their web site lists the "myths" of health care reform -- which are four of the major objections that seniors, among many thousands of others, have to HR3200 in particular.

Let me say it again: Everyone is in favor of health care reform. BUT NOBODY WITH A FUNCTIONING BRAIN WANTS HR3200. A lot of changes can be made to health insurance without out-and-out socializing the health care industry. The Democrats might try talking to the Republicans about this. Several Republicans have proposed careful, targeted and well-thought-out changes that can reduce costs without giving the federal government the power of life and death over all citizens.

So it seems AARP is invested very heavily in their own little media campaign, but, mindful that their membership is willing to abandon them because of it, they prefer to call HR3200 by another name.

The way AARP supposedly clears up all the myths, by the way, is the same way the Comrade clears up all the myths: by making vague generalities about their "good intentions."

• People are concerned about rationing. AARP and the Comrade say: "We have no intention of rationing."
• People are concerned about costs. The Comrade says, "I won't sign any legislation that isn't deficit-neutral."
• People are concerned that they will lose Medicare benefits. AARP says, "We have no intention of letting anyone in Washington reduce Medicare benefits."
• People believe HR3200 specifically is too expensive. AARP and the Comrade say, "Health insurance costs will double over the next seven years without reform. Businesses are going bankrupt providing health insurance." But neither of them address the fact of the CBO's scoring of HR3200, which claims the bill will result in a more than $1 TRILLION deficit over 10 years. And that's probably a conservative estimate, going by the projected cost of Medicare, Medicaid, and everything else vs. what costs have actually been when the plan is implemented.
• People ask questions at these town halls -- even the presidential ones -- and they get, "We don't want to see rationed health care. We don't want to increase the cost. We don't want to limit options." This may not be what they want, but that's more than likely what they will end up with if HR3200 is passed.

All AARP and the Comrade offer anyone is their good intentions with nothing to back them up. So, show us your other, good reform, because HR3200 certainly does not accomplish any of the proposed goals that the Comrade repeats over and over. (By the way, can you tell he attended school at a madrassa for a while? He seems to think if he repeats something over and over and over again ad nauseum, it will become true.)

In addition, asked twice on Saturday about the "government option," the Comrade described it as something like a co-op rather than the "government option" outlined in HR3200. Of course, HR3200 is pretty vague about this, too, probably leaving all the nuts'n'bolts of it up to some yet-to-be-appointed bureaucrat. And flying in the face of facts proven through all human experience, Comrae Osama keeps insisting that the "government option" will not crowd out private insurance.

I don't think he's read HR3200. All the stuff about exactly how the "government option" will crowd out private insurance is in the first 50 pages. As a matter of fact, the way the bill is worded, phasing out private insurance appears to be a deliberate aim of the bill.

By the way, hate to keep running down the British National Health System, but it's hard to quit. A few headlines from the British press:

Hospitals 'infested with vermin'

Pest control expert David Cross on how pests get into hospitals and spread infection.

The cleanliness of most NHS hospitals in England is threatened by frequent invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches, a report claims.

Figures released by the Conservatives show that 70% of NHS Trusts brought in pest controllers at least 50 times between January 2006 and March 2008.

Vermin were found in wards, clinics and even operating theatres. A patients' group said the situation was revolting.

And:

Press Release issued 10 June 2008
ST GEORGE'S TOP FOR REDUCING PATIENT WAITS

St George's Healthcare NHS Trust has been praised by the minister of state for public health for exceeding a government target to reduce patient waits - nine months ahead of deadline.

The Trust is one of just 35 in England and one of six in the London area to have already met a Department of Health (DH) target set for December 2008 to have 95 per cent of non-admitted (outpatients) and 90 per cent of admitted patients (inpatients and daycase patients) receive treatment within 18 weeks of referral.

This surpassed a milestone set for March but also exceeded the target set for December for referral-to-treatment times, making St George's one of the first hospitals nationally to achieve it.

And my favorite, dovetailing two aspects of political correctness:

Hospitals will take meat off menus in bid to cut carbon
Juliette Jowit The Guardian, Monday 26 January 2009

Meat-free menus are to be promoted in hospitals as part of a strategy to cut global warming emissions across the National Health Service.

The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient departments and instead asking surgeons to visit people at their local doctor's surgery.

Some suggestions are likely to be controversial with patients' groups, especially attempts to curb meat eating and car use. Plans to reuse more equipment could raise concern about infection with superbugs such as MRSA.

I seriously doubt the British intended to have a nightmare health care system. It just ended up that way -- because it costs more than anyone is willing to pay, drives professionals out, and subjects sick people to the whims and fancies of politicians. It's just better not to even start down that path.

Who are the "Special Interests" in the health care debate?

Just a note....

Comrade Osama speaking in Montana yesterday. He continues to beat his little drum: "All the Special Interests are trying to block socialized medicine," he says.

Hate to tell you, Dude, but just in case you aren't keeping score, all the Special Interests are lined up on your side. The big pharmaceuticals, the AMA, nursing associations, hopsital associations.... The insurance industry is in favor of reform, but not socialized medicine.

What is he, nuts? Or is this just another one of his cute little redefinitions of the English language?

Apparently "Special Interest" now means "Private American Citizen" in the prez's vocabulary.

What a damn fool. And worse... he thinks we're all brain-dead.

Been doing more research on unions. I'll write more later.....

Unlimited health care resources

Read Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's (et. at.) paper on the proper way to ration health care. If you're interested, you can find it at www.thelancet.com . It's in Vol. 373, Issue 9661, pgs 423 - 431. The issue date is Jan. 31, 2009.

It's pretty disgusting. There's just something freakishly cold about it and machine-like, as though it's computer-generated. Only a computer might give it more color and decorate it with shiny, spinning things.

Visited the National Archives a long time ago, where the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are displayed. At the time, they had only a long, narrow corridor off to one side of the building for other exhibits. When I was there, on display were artifacts from the German Third Reich, including an accounting ledger -- just an ordinary, hardbound accounting ledger with blue and red rules -- that listed the names of those gassed that day. Just keeping track, you know; those people won't need dinner.

Anyway, the Ezekiel Emanuel article is like that. Same sort of tone.

Interesting that the article begins by assuming that medical resources, including items like transplantable organs, are in scarce supply. Then it outlines eight methods for allocating these scarce resources. It ends up by suggesting that something called the "whole-life" system be used for rationing these medical resources. Like, babies have potential, but they have little invested in them in terms of care and education. Old people have had these investments, but they have only a limited time to make any contributions. So people from age 15 through 40 should receive scarce medical resources -- or at least the healthy ones. The chronically ill, after all, face the same kinds of issues as the elderly.

(Anybody see the epic, Shoah? The article was actually a lot like that.)

Anyway, what's wrong with that article is its fundamental approach.

I'll agree that medical resources are scarce, but I'd qualify even that, saying some medical resources are scarce. Now there are several ways you can solve that situation. One is to contrive a scheme to ration the distribution of these resources. Another is to expand the supply of resources.

The second approach wasn't considered. Apparently it was beyond the scope of the article, or perhaps beyond the scope of its authors' intellects, imaginations, and personal preferences.

In a free market system driven by profit motive -- be the "profit" money, fame, humanitarianism, etc. -- when a scarcity in any field is recognized, it becomes an opportunity. I mean, there are waiting lists to get into medical schools in the USA.... though this might change with socialized medicine.

Exploiting these opportunites requires the freedom to make personal choices that an individual regards as rewarding in some way. Interested, motivated, and qualified individuals have to be free to pursue a solution, either through education, by developing new production sources and/or techniques, devising effective substitutes, more efficient delivery systems and so on.

When the government controls an industry -- any industry -- it sets the operational goals and standards, and mandates things like "best practices." In a government managed environment, best practices are the death of experimentation, innovation, and research. Government control, because it's enforced by the threat of punishment of some kind, tends to serve as a big wet blanket on creativity and even carefully calculated risk-taking.

The government can't possibly develop a "best practices" prescription to fit every possible medical situation. All it can do is limit the options to an approved few and chastize those in the medical industry who stray from the norm.

The development of vaccines and medicines supplied the need for cures to many illnesses. Studying the effects of sanitation in hospitals was on the frontier of medical science only 150 years ago. Nowadays, some researchers are learning how to grow replacement organs from DNA.

When people are free, there are no problems that can't be solved. Often the solutions create other problems, but that's part of the risk and the process of growth. Medical solutions in particular that are developed by a responsible person or organization are usually tested as well as they can be before they're unleashed on the general public -- the developer usually wants to succeed, not kill people. And in the US so far, medications have been given with consent -- not necessarily the way a government-run health system would operate. I mean, to quote The Comrade, why prescribe a blue pill when a red one will do just as well?

Under the current regime in Washington DC, things like personal freedom, innovation, growth and development are all being dumped on the side of the road like so much useless baggage. Instead, we get "green" standards and icky stuff like the Ezekiel Emanuel article.

Just another example of the lunatics -- or perhaps self-anointed gods -- running the asylum. But this is truly chilling.

The Comrade weighs in on health care... or doesn't

Watched the Comrade's town hall meeting in New Hampshire on health care reform. Basically he delivered a trimmed-down, recycled campaign speech about what he's going to do for us on health care.

Seems that the majority of Americans already are aware of what he's going to do to us on health care. But, as usual, Comrade Osama seems to be relying on his personal charm to sell socialized medicine. This is wearing a bit thin.

Fox News had a too-brief commentary from both Rep and Dem advocates. The Dem advocate said something about, "Well, show us the Republican plan." Actually, the Republicans have a wealth of ideas -- from Newt Gingrich, Jim Demint and others. The Republicans suggest things like tort reform and working to reduce the fraud in existing Medicare/Medicaid programs. But the Dems in congress won't listen and apparently actively exclude Republicans from the legislative process. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z3WBSn1viI

The Democrats and the Comrade are confusing "health care reform" with "socialized medicine," and they seem to want to confuse the public about this, too. They don't understand that you can have one without the other. Or maybe they're just being disengenuous. After all, if we have simple reform, they won't get to micromanage our lives -- and for the socialists and marxists among them, what the hell is the point of health care reform if it doesn't involve a massive expansion of federal power?

HR3200 a "Transfer of Power" - from you to the feds

Just heard on the news that The Comrade is holding a town hall meeting in New Hampshire today. He also said that he believes reasonable arguments will prevail in congress. Only I don't think he'd recognize a reasonable argument if it bit him on the ankle, so heaven only knows what the heck he's talking about.

The White House supposedly has launched a new website explaining away all the "myths and lies" about socialized medicine. I was going to go take a look at it, but I don't think the White House can tell me anything I don't already know. I've read the bill and actually listened to the arguments for and against it, so I'm way ahead of those buttheads already.

For those attending town hall meetings and everyone else, a few things to keep foremost in your mind:

HR3200 -- the Monster Socialized Medcine Bill in the House -- is only a rough outline of what socialized medicine will look like if it's ever passed and implemented.

You've heard that its "government option" will crowd out private insurance -- which is true. The US government has long-standing policies in place that are based on the proven fact that any product or service that is government-subsidized and government-funded has an unfair competitive advantage in the free market. Health insurance is not an exception. HR3200 includes the federally-subsidized "government option" to pave the way for socialized medicine. Even Barney (Fudd) Frank admitted as much.

The so-called "Advance Death Planning" provisions are in there, too, and when I read the bill, these counseling sessions were required for the elderly. Some congresscritters have claimed the counseling isn't required. Who knows? Maybe they changed this on that last day of congressional scheming behind closed doors before they recessed.

The bill does call for "re-allocating" $500 billion from Medicare to fund HR3200. That's in the bill. You might ask how the federal government is going to pay for Medicare without those funds, considering that more and more people retire every day and enter the Medicare system. I didn't see any suggestions in the bill for replacing these Medicare funds. Will they increase the Medicare co-pays? Send the elderly to Canada? Who knows? You can ask.

Every individual without insurance from their employer or somewhere else will be forced to get some kind of insurance or pay a fine of 2.5% of their annual income. That's in the bill. And any insurance you buy will have to be approved by the federal government; it will have to offer certain types of coverage or it won't count as health insurance. The Health Insurance Exchange will decide what kind of insurance counts as real health insurance -- including policies from private insurers.

The bill calls existing insurance policies "grandfathered" policies. People can keep them for now, and can add their dependents to this coverage, but the policies can't be changed in any way, and the premiums can't change. They're called "grandfathered" because HR3200 phases them out.

What HR3200 does NOT do is outline specific medical procedures and things like that. HOWEVER, it does set up a federal agency to review health care practices and determine "best practices." The bill doesn't really say why, but I'm guessing it will be so that federal bureaucrats can tell doctors what treatments they can provide to whom.

And, by the way, so-called "best practices" already are determined by private professional associations like the American College of Pediatricians and similar groups for other specialties. These private organizations educate and certify doctors in their specialties. These are the certificates that hang on the wall of your doctor's office. Also, doctors are periodically tested by these organizations in order to maintain their certifications. Seems like the federal government may be trying to replace these private associations. Who knows?

You can ask if the bill allows for government-funded abortion. This isn't mentioned specifically in the bill. Apparently the issue will be decided by the Health Commissioner or by some federal agency, if the bill passes.

The bill doesn't mention rationing, either. However, rationing is the inevitable outcome of providing universal access to health care without expanding the pool of available doctors, hospitals, and other related service providers. I haven't heard anyone from Washington address this issue at all. They just pretend "it can't happen here" and want you to trust them on this.

The bill's sponsors claim that the bill will cut costs. Personally, I can't figure out how that can possibly happen. The Health Commissioner or some other bureaucrat may just decide that it will only pay doctors $XX.XX for a certain procedure, or will only pay a hospital $XX.XX per day for a hospital stay. If this is below what the procedures actually costs the doctor or what a hospital stay costs the hospital, the doctor will be forced to find some other line of work and the hospital will close. This is just reality -- no matter what pie-in-the-sky promises a congresscritter might make. It's already happened with Medicare and Medicaid.

You can go on and on with all the various provisions in HR3200. Most are vague and very general. They don't really say how the Health Commissioner and all the various agencies this bill establishes will operate or anything like that. It has very few specifics.

Essentially what HR3200 does is transfer the power to make health care decisions from the individual to the federal government. It takes away your own right to make these decisions and transfers this authority to the federal government.

No bill could list all the details necessary to run the US health care industry. It would have to list every single activity in the industry and offer a regulation about how to handle it. HR3200 doesn't do this.... WHAT IT DOES DO IS ESTABLISH THE OFFICES AND AGENCIES THAT WILL REGULATE EVERY ASPECT OF HEALTH CARE.

Do you want to give the feds this kind of power?

Anyway, all of the above are some of the questions you can ask about at the town hall meetings. Otherwise, a really skilled politician will turn your questions around, confuse the issues, try to make you look like an uninformed idiot or a hysterical fool. I think this is what the Democrats plan to do now to try to secure some kind of support for HR3200 -- this crime against humanity.

So just ask for a "yes" or "no" answer to this: Does this bill establish a federal authority that will make health care decisions for me? Isn't "establishing" my health care options the same as "limiting" them? After all, I won't have any more options than those the federal government believes I need, no matter who provides those services.

And, How much will it cost? Not just in dollars, but in terms of keeping your rights and political freedom. If you're free, you can always make money. But once you give your rights away, they're gone for good.

I don't think I'm telling anyone anything new, either. Just don't let youselves get bogged down in the smiley-face "talking points" the White House passed out to Democrats -- marching orders on how to "sell" socialized medicine to people who clearly don't want it. Most congresscritters are good talkers, you know. They're usually very amiable people. That's how they got elected.

The thing is, stay focused on the major issue -- the transfer of power from you to the federal government. That's the most horrifying feature of socialized medicine. That's what we -- and the congresscritters -- really need to be aware of.

Democrat pillow talk

I have this theory about the Civil War. I could go into any level of detail about it, but to way over-simplify this conflict, I believe it was primarily that human history was marching beyond the institution of slavery, and the southern planters weren't willing or able to accept that fact.

Was talking to a friend of mine once, who's black, about the Civil War. We were talking about the slave-owners' view of their slaves and their "peculiar institution." My friend said, "What the hell were they thinking?"

Funny, because that's exactly my take on it.

The planters justified slavery in several ways. They needed slave labor for one thing, although the more gentile among the southern gentry (and they all wanted to be gentile), would admit to grubby economic motives only as a last resort.

No, the planters maintained their "dependencies" primarily for the good of the slaves. I mean, the slaves were ignorant, uncivilized, child-like, not overly bright, and habitual liars and thieves. The slaves were lazy and irresponsible and, if left to their own devices without the control of white masters, they'd never be able to manage their own lives. They'd end up shiftless beggars, criminals, rapists, drunkards, etc. etc.

Of course, much of the bad behavior perpetrated by the slaves -- and there was plenty of it -- was because they were slaves. They weren't allowed to develop their intellect or their skills. Like, by the mid-1800s, most slave states had made it illegal to teach slaves to read. A lot of historic evidence indicates that slaves didn't work any harder than they had to, slacked off when they could, and even might runaway and hide in the woods for a few weeks vacation, though most of them were eventually hunted down and returned to their masters, or came back willingly.

Anybody forced into slavery behaves the same way. Matter of fact, this kind of behavior is very similar to that in totalitarian nations. I mean, why work so hard? You don't get anything for it. Lots of theft and even black markets because honest effort for your own advancement and unregulated trade is illegal. People are child-like and irresponsible because they aren't allowed to make their own decisions.

On the other hand, many slaves oraganized and managed the plantations very successfully when their masters were "at the Springs" during summer for months and "in town" or "on tour" sometimes for years at a stretch. The slaves built much of the South brick-by-brick, and they even made the bricks. Many were trained in skilled work and hired out as blacksmiths, ironworkers, mill workers, carpenters, etc. Frederick Douglass was a ship-fitter. But the slave-owners overlooked all this and clung to their belief in the slaves' inborn inferiority and incompetency.

So in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, how did the slave-owners convince themselves that they were acting in the slaves' best intersts? I mean: What the hell were they thinking?

If you read what many of the planters wrote at the time, it's almost funny, and some of it has a really disturbing, almost hysterical edge to it. I mean, let's not forget, in a few slave states, the whites were outnumbered. The planters had this bizarre mind-set. I'll try to describe it:

The white planter -- usually, but not always -- a man, saw himself as the wise, beneficent, intelligent, tough, independent master of the universe. God simply made him that way. It was the planter's job on earth to run things. Some of the pro-slavery crowd even believed they were the product of a certain strain of Scots-Irish and had a birthright to rule. Their superiority was somehow bred into them, so they were obligated to wear the heavy crown of the lord and master.

Generally speaking, their arrogance was insufferable. They even considered white Yankees to be mongrels -- so many of them "mixed" with Irish and Germans -- and quite famously regarded the Yankees as nothing more than "mechanics and mudsills," crass, greedy money-grubbers.

No true gentleman dirtied his hands with manual labor. That's what the "other races" were for. The planter was above all that. His task was to rule.

What reminded me of all this was, I was reading a couple liberal blogs and video clips of Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman. You can cut the arrogance with a knife. The sense of superiority and pomposity is positively suffocating. Like, want a laugh? Go read Paul Krugman's blogs in the NY Times... and more importantly, the rah-rah -- yet tasteful -- comments his supportive readers leave like little gifts on his doorstep.

The thing is, the planters' views of slaves is eerily similar to the liberals' views of "everyone else." And in neither case do these views even come close to a useful paradigm for human life on earth.

So how do liberals sustain their silly world-view in the face of reality? They prop each other up with little lies. It's like they all stay drunk together, or spin a soft, quiet cocoon around themselves. They can't afford dissenting opinion, they interpret it -- like the planters did -- as uppity ingratitude. They go completely ballistic when you don't agree with them, and especially if you have a stronger argument. They view it only as back-sass from the great unwashed. Or, since liberals suspect that those who disagree with them are incapable of rational thought, the liberals insist that anyone who disagrees with them must be dupes and marionettes for the truly evil: capitalist mechanics and mudsills.

As a marxist, Comrade Osama has adopted all the liberal crap -- I mean, the whole load. He even takes it a couple steps further than most white liberals would dare. That's why other liberals love him so. For them, he's living proof of their silly beliefs and.... (breathless squeal) he's President!

So here's my challenge to liberals: Try to imagine what it would be like to deal with another human being as an equal rather than as an inferior or as a demigod. Try to conduct a town hall with both give and take. Listen to your consituents, don't just talk at them. They probably have a couple better ideas than you do. They made the country and pay your salary.

But you know what? Like the planters, the liberals just don't know how to act except as bosses or toadies. They don't understand what equality really means. And, like the slave-owners at the time of the Civil War, history is marching past these people and they're clinging deperately to their outmoded delusions and clutching at the reins of power to try to postpone their own obsolescence.

I refuse to call liberals "progressives." They're the true reactionaries, blocking the path to real growth and development.

Attaboy, Comrade!

Well, today The Comrade gave a speech in Virginia and apparently pretty much suggested that anyone who doesn't want socialized medicine should be bound and gagged -- especially gagged. The dissenters just need to shut up and let him do whatever he wants to do with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. I mean, who the hell are we to question him and his minions? Our role in his Utopian scenario is only as "payer."

All I can say is: I never even remotely suspected him of believing in the value of human life or in individual rights. Because he's a marxist, though, you'd think he'd at least give a courteous nod at the notion of spontaneous political activism, but I guess that only applies when the activism supports his own position.

Dick(head) Durbin is just a plain fool. Never suspected him of much else, either.

And Pazzo Pelosi... well... one Gulf Stream just isn't enough. Now she wants eight of them for the personal use of congress. Perhaps to haul her make-up, clothing, and wigs back and forth between San Francisco and DC. Or an entourage of yes-persons to manage her ego, creating a layer of functioning and obedient insulation between her and the public. Otherwise, she's in real danger of having her delusions shattered.

As reported in the L.A. Times a few days ago, the Dems apparently had planned to blame any resistance to socialized medicine on the insurance industry, but it seems that target has failed to materialize -- except in Democrat Fantasyland, where the top executives of Humana and Kaiser Permanente sit up all night trying on "Joe six-pack" disguises: ill-fitting cargo shorts, short-sleeved plaid shirts, and the inevitable beat-up Nikes.

Anyway, so now instead of going after "organized insurance," the socialists -- including SEIU -- are attacking ordinary American citizens. Quite literally. One poor guy who was selling American flags and other stuff outside of a town hall meeting in St. Louis was physically attacked and beaten by a bunch of thugs advertising their favorite labor union on their T-shirts. Button-down brown shirts might be more appropriate. Sam Browne belts and jack boots would complete the fashion statement.

H-m-m-m-m, who else has attacked American citizens? The Brits under King George, the Confederate States of America, the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, and al-Qaeda. Doesn't seem to ever end happily for them, does it?

Let's see how this strategy pays off for the Democrats in 2010.

Have to wonder why the Dems are following such a negative program. You'd think they'd be talking up the wonders of socialized medicine and crowing about all the benefits it will bring to the nation. Don't hear any of that, though. Quite possibly because so few of those in favor actually know what's in the bill and haven't got the foggiest notion of what it's going to do to the nation. However, they're probably hoping that some juicy hunk of pork intended just for them will be tucked in there amongst all those unintelligible clauses.

You know, we pay these idiots for this. Can someone please explain that?

One of my favorite quotes is from Will Rogers:

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

So, hey, congresscritters, take your time getting back to work. We're a lot better off when you guys are beyond reach of those voting buttons.

Stop, look, and LISTEN

When I was in college, I took a course in personal communications, which included a segment on listening. Really listening. That's a skill that's greatly lacking among Democrats and many other politicians.

The first thing I learned -- and it's true -- is that most people don't listen to each other. They're either focused on the question they just posed instead of registering its response, or they're busting with eagerness to get their two cents in the conversation. They hear, but they don't listen.

Listening is indispensable to journalists. You must listen to the response to any question you ask, if only so that you can ask appropriate follow-ups. Watch the very best journalists when they do an interview. They usually very calmly and intently listen to the answer before they rush ahead to the next question.

So, anyway, lots of stuff on the news today about congresscritters being terrorized by their constituents at town hall meetings. It's funny -- I mean "ha-ha" funny. You have these men, mostly, from congress standing in front of a crowd spewing their meaningless talking points like used car salesmen, and the crowds just aren't having any. The voters want to know this and that -- and they've been asking pretty specific questions in most cases. They know what's going on. And usually they have a certain level of rage in their tone of voice.

As the congresscritter unwraps yet another canned answer -- he got Pelosi's memo -- the crowd jeers and shouts him down. A little sick of the b.s., maybe? And all too aware that the guy is just blowing smoke.

The congresscritters are appalled. How dare these peons talk back? They don't appreciate how hard congress works and the binding nature of the promises they've made to The Comrade to "deliver" support. This rabble knows more about the legislative proposals than their representatives do. And this rabble is pissed.

Worst of all, this sass blows to hell the theory that is apparently commonly-held among congresscritters that the general populace is ignorant, uninformed, unsophistcated, and not very bright. The congresscritters don't how to handle this. It's a whole new world for them, and they aren't in charge anymore.

At a meeting in South Austin, Texas, Rep Lloyd Doggett ran for cover. The crowd followed him out to his car in the parking lot, chanting, "Just say no! Just say no!" I believe it was Doggett who complained that these people weren't even from his district. Or possibly he just didn't recognize them as the same ol' lowly citizens and voters.

The Democrat National party responds to this phenomona by claiming it's all a nefarious plot instigated by "you know who." No, I really don't know who. And I'm not hearing the names of any specific people or organizations, except that Dick(head) Durbin, Senate Dem whip, called the town hall people "tea-baggers and birthers," and pretty much blew them off as lunatic fringe.

At the DNC website, they've posted a press release with hyperlinks to hell's-own-cheat-sheet called "Rock the Town Hall," or something like that. It's a PDF file and tells dissenters how to organize to attend a town hall meeting. It advises people to check the congresscritter's voting record, write down specific questions beforehand -- and include facts and figures. Don't ask vague questions. Don't just whine and complain. Keep your questions short and to the point. Spread your companions among the crowd, keep your hands up to be picked to ask a question. By spreading out, they have a more likely chance of asking more questions and they'll look like a majority.

Somehow, the Democrats think this is a hideous plot to overthrow the American way of life. That's only one indication of how little they know about this country.

I looked up the organization that issued the advice sheet. It's at: http://www.rightprinciples.com/ . Take a look. Apparently it's a group of five guys who all have day jobs, although one says he's a retired attorney. They aren't politicians. They're just concerned citizens, and most haven't been politically active before in their lives.

O-o-o-o-h, scary. At least it is if you're trying to defend the Democrat leadership's socialist agenda.

So what do the Democrats plan to do to overcome the public revulsion at socialized medicine? A group of Dem senators had lunch at the White House today to discuss strategies. They were interviewed as they were leaving, and the scene was rather embarrasing. Max Baucus, who I thought had some sense, was all a-tingle at being in The Comrade's holy presence and just went on and on about The Comrade's wonderful style of presenting himself. Sounds like Baucus is in l-u-u-v.

But more seriously, these creeps are once again raising the specter of "reconciliation." That is to say, they'll present a complete bill for vote on the floor, accept no amendments, severely limit debate, and require a straight "yay" or "nay" vote... and a simple majority wins.

In other words, when reason and persuasion fail, f*** the public. Jam it down their throats. Force them to accept it. Once it's law, you can throw them in jail if they refuse to dance to The Comrade's tune.

These people are lower than pond scum, you do realize that?

An interesting anecdote from history:

George Armstrong Custer remains, as far as I know, the youngest man in US history ever to be made a general. It was a field promotion (brevet) and he went back to a more normal rank after the Civil War.

Anyway, he was a very popular guy. Very flambuoyant. He was the most-photographed officer in the Civil War. He also sometimes took reckless and unnecessary risks with his commands, apparently in hopes of promoting his own career.

As an Indian fighter on the Great Plains, he was hunting buffalo one time and shot his horse in the head by accident and had to walk about five miles back to where his command was bivouacked. It's kinda hard to load and fire a rifle when you're on a galloping horse. Custer didn't often let common sense get in the way of his bravado, though.

The fiasco at Little Big Horn is pretty well known. Custer divided his command, sending one group of his men to the far end of an impromptu village made up of several different nations of Indians. The idea was, one bunch of the US cavalry would ride into the village and drive the Indians to the other end... Where Custer and his men would be waiting for them with hot lead and cold steel.

Well, the Indians figured it out. They had better rifles, too -- breech-loading repeaters, which the US government didn't want to spend money on for the cavalry; they figured most of the troopers would only waste more ammunition. After a couple hours or so of pretty heavy combat, Custer's command was wiped out, except for one horse.

The Indians, even when they were fighting amongst themselves, mutilated the bodies of dead enemies. Each tribe left a distinctive mark to show who'd done the damage. One tribe of Sioux cut throats, another slashed thighs. The Cheyenne cut off fingers, and so on. So the bodies of Custer's cavalry were duly mutiliated. They were stripped naked, relieved of their weapons, etc. Except for Custer, or so the legend goes.

They didn't touch Custer's body. Except that the Indian women punctured his ear drums so that he might learn to listen.

By the way, the Sioux, who had a major presence at Little Big Horn, never lost a battle against the US cavalry. Rather, they were starved into submission and dependency and herded onto government-run reservations.

Cash for Clunkers to the nth power

Just a quick observation.

The federal government's so-called Cash for Clunkers program offers citizens $4500 for their old car if they trade it in for a newer model. Congress in all its wisdom set aside $1 Billion for this program and scheduled it to run from the end of July to mid-November.

The program ran out of money in FOUR DAYS. Congress has now tripled the program's budget just to keep it afloat for a while longer. I mean, think of all those car dealers who bought ad campaigns for the program. The ad campaigns would last longer than the program did.

So how do you think "free" government health care is going to work?

Congress is expecting to pay -- so far -- a little under $1 TRILLION on this over the next ten years.

What do you want to bet the program will run out of funds in less than one year -- or even quicker.

And the feds are claiming that Cash for Clunkers is a resounding success. Will they make the same claim when citizens are seeing more than half their incomes confiscated to pay for socialized medicine?

More important, will you?

Socialists on the march

Man, the socialists are quick!

I had barely finished the last blog about Pelosi and the Democrats' hate campaign against the insurance industry, when ... lo and behold!... an early-morning talk radio show features an interview as a live-and-in-color demonstration of same.

On a show hosted by Paul Harris at 6:00 am Saturday morning on WLS-AM, a speaker named Wendell Potter comes on. He's described as a public relations professional who was for decades employed by the insurance industry. But he's left that industry because it just made him sick. (He's truly concerned about people, you see, and only looking out for their best interests.)

Now he works for The Center for Media & Democracy, which is funded in part by the Tides Foundation and Proteus Fund. If I recall correctly, these organizations are tied to ACORN and to George Soros. The Center's web site also lists other organizations that are supposedly all about "democracy."

Mr. Wendell Potter is soft-spoken, somehow sad and sympathetic, talking about, "Boy, it's amazing when you see what these guys [insurance industry executives] will do to please Wall Street."

The magic of radio: you can just picture him sorrowfully nodding at the horror of it all, with a tear welling up in his eye.

And, of course, those nasty, greedy insurance executives.... They're the old meanies who are driving up costs and wrecking the health care industry. They just want to make a profit.

What a load of crap! And out so quickly!

Mr. Potter points out that there is public transportation and also people driving cars on the very same roads.... See, he says, the "public option" doesn't drive out the privately-owned.

If Mr. Potter truly had a brain and truly spent so many years in the insurance industry, he must be aware that transportation and health care are two very different animals, but we won't talk about that.

These jerks are organized. Man the battle stations! Unfortunately, I couldn't find the phone number to this talk show to call up and call this jerk out.