The REAL problem

Spent some time looking at conservative blogs and publications, conservative mailing lists, discussion groups, etc.

So we have a marxist in the White House destroying the capitalist economy, and some people continue to worry about Comrade Osama's birth certificate. If he was born in Kenya or Hawaii, and what someone who claims to be his great-uncle says.

You know what? Who gives a damn? Prez Comrade is not going to be booted out of office on the basis of his birth certificate or lack thereof. Headlines at worldnetdaily. com screamed something about how shocking it is that "Americans don't care!!" about Comrade Osama's birth certificate. Right. It doesn't matter. It's a non-issue. He's not going to be kicked out of office for lying about his place of birth -- if he is lying. So get off it and move on to something that's really important, like, no matter where he was born, this sonofabitch is anihilating individual liberty.

Elsewhere, I invited some libertarian-leaning people to read my blog about socialized medicine (It ain't NICE.) What was the reaction? Something like seven out of nine comments objected to my calling Comrade Osama "Osama."

Yeah, they put their finger on the big issue there. Not that Comrade Osama is appropriating all the heretofore privately-owned assets of the US health care industry and turning medical professionals into slaves of the state, but that I call him "Osama." I must applaud their breadth of vision and their ability to identify priorities.

In the past, I've been a card-carrying Libertarian and it's worth noting, given a range of issues and activities to pursue, Libertarians will generally head straight for the small potatoes -- the tiny inconsistencies in the "other guy's" argument, the fact that the Reps and Dems omitted from their campaign platforms any consideration about who could "claim" the moon in the course of space exploration. They kinda remind me of that one character in the novel, Catch-22, whose eyes look in two directions at the same time and who was apparently unable to focus on any one thing at a time.

With friends like these, is there any wonder the nation is going down the tubes? Before we look at issues, let's make sure all of our speech is politically correct.

FYI -- I don't play that game. In fact, I believe that's only a tool that the addle-brained use to hamstring political discourse. I try not to cuss too much on this blog. Those who know me in real life might understand that this takes some effort. I tend to call foul people foul names.

Comrade Osama is Comrade Osama. Not an insult, merely an accurate characterization. He's a marxist and a terrorist devoted to destroying the USA. What would you call him?

Am I supposed to show him respect? That would be lying. I don't have any respect for him, or for Pazzo Pelosi or Magic Martian Abracadabrajab, who's just now breaking heads in Iran. Do you respect these people? If so, why?

I actually expected better things from Project 912's web site -- the one launched by Glenn Beck. Some posters there are pretty cool and savvy. However, literally hundreds of posts were responses to some guy who calls himself Elliott, who apparently is trolling the list. For the uninitiated, "trolling" means posting deliberately provocative statements and/or insults that, if they work, distract everyone from the real issues.

They are a key reason why mailing lists usually don't accomplish anything, and why most of them end up being little more than exchanges of personal insults, or "flames." I'm quite certain that Comrade Osama actively recruits his halfwitted minions to surf the web in search of derogatory mailing lists, discussion groups, etc., and has charged them with the task of trolling these lists to keep the legitimate participants unfocused and ultimately impotent and ineffective.

The best and only effective way to deal with trolls on any mailing list is to ignore them. Last I saw on the Project 912 list was that another hundred or so posts had been devoted to figuring out this very simple social principle. I mean, when I was in kindergarten, my mom told me to ignore the obnoxious bullies. They only crave attention, and the more attention you give them, the worse their behavior gets. They're like flashers. Is this a lesson of such profound depth and complexity that it requires a lot of study and commentary? Just ignore the twit and move on.

I may be giving away my age here, but I was around for the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago -- the one where the Chicago Police ended up breaking heads on Clark Street and then again on Michigan Avenue. I didn't go down there; I was actually trying to avoid the police at the time. At any rate....

Had a friend who was working undercover for the FBI at the time. He was a student himself and able to mix with other students in the radical groups. His job was to identify the rabble rousers and report them to the FBI. Added benefit, he was an artist. He could draw portraits of said leftists and pass those to the FBI, since the people who did the inciting moved from place to place and usually operated under a number of aliases. The info my friend provided was almost as good as getting photographs.

At any rate, something the FBI advised my friend to do to break up protests -- even legitimate ones -- was to raise so many issues that the dissenting groups couldn't concentrate their numbers around any one thing. So instead of organizing a really effective and representative group to give voice to protest, you ended up with a bunch of disgruntled and isolated misfits, each nurturing their own petty grievance and battling each other about what was important, while the "powers that be" swept into office on the big issues.

Sound familiar?

Comrade Osama is destroying the concept of individual rights in the USA. He's obliterating capitalism and the free market.

Is there anything more important?

And please, feel free to check my spelling. Then I'll edit your commentary for grammatical errors and misuse of the English language.

Meanwhile, Rome burns.

Not with a bang....

How depressing. Since the banks are giving back the TARP money, Osama has now devised a plan to nationalize the banking industry outright, and just about everything else.

He's really quite the vicious son of a bitch, isn't he? It almost beggars belief. I can't even see his charm anymore. He just looks lame to me.

And why ABC-TV is giving him two hours of prime time to sell his socialized medicine scheme to the American public is beyond me. Apparently ABC-TV is even refusing to run any ads that counter the socialized medicine plan during their soviet-style propaganda show.

Must say, I haven't watched anything on ABC for some time. The last time I tuned into Stephanopoulos' Sunday morning political show, it was so pathetic it was difficult to watch. I would happily boycott ABC, but I never watch it anyway. I certainly won't watch their socialized medicine -- or should that be "snake oil" -- show. I couldn't tell you what else they air.

But don't you see what's happening here? Don't you see, or is that you just don't care?

You just assume that the USA is a free country and look no further. Ha-ha! Have you got a surprise coming.

"That's the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper."

Guess we've got the answer

I started this blog by talking about Ben Franklin telling a woman that he and the other delegates had founded a republic, if we can keep it.

Guess we have the answer to that now.

R.I.P. to what was a really good idea -- the USA -- that spawned all kinds of prosperity, creativity, peace, and lots of stuff that was just plain fun.

Now time to hunker down and kiss the ass of the federal regulators. Just like The Third Reich, Soviet Union, et. al.

The market dropped more than 200 points over the last couple days. It's probably dropping even more now. Maybe it will come back up so I can cash in what's left of my IRA stock -- at least enough to fund my departure from Amerika.

Doubt I'll be able to sell this house for what I paid for it in this market, so that's a complete waste. At least I won't have to worry about the grass or cleaning out the gutters. The village can turn it into a parking lot -- their fondest dreams come true.

Now... where to go. Have to go check out some desolate islands in the South Pacific or someplace.

I'm glad I have less life to look forward to than to look back on. Most of my relatives are dead. So, not leaving a whole lot behind.

What bothers me the most is the death of what seemed to be a really viable ideal. That's just too bad. I had such hopes for the human race.

It ain't NICE

Just spent some time at www.nice.org.uk, which is the UK's health care rationing board. This is something that Osama has not only proposed for the USA, but the money to pay for it already has been allocated in the Stimulus Package. NICE develops standards for care for the UK health care monolith. I mean industry.

Apart from the physicians and other experts who are part of this organization, a Citizens Council of about 30 people -- representative of everyone in the UK, the organization says -- meet a few times every year to grapple with questions like, Should age be part of considerations in determining health care treatments?

Interesting to read the results of the Citizens Councils deliberations. Like, if older people can actually die from the flu, while younger people only get sick for a couple days but are likely to recover, then the limited supply of "flu jabs" should go first to older people. At least 22 people out of the whole Council seemed to agree on this. Others believed everyone should be treated the same.

At some point, this becomes so very, very sad. I'm sure both the experts and the Citizens Council of NICE are sincere in their efforts to consider the various aspects of health care, and I'm sure they hope to be fair. But take a step back and look again....

Suppose you fall down a flight of stairs and, while you weren't knocked unconscious or didn't seem to break any bones, when you wake up the next morning, your knee hurts so bad you can't bend it or straighten it out. It's black-and-blue and swollen. So what do you do?

Go the local health council, made up of physicians and other experts, accountants, and then a half-dozen of your neighbors. They all examine your knee from various perspectives and decide on what your treatment will be, including how valuable your comfort and mobility are to the community as a whole vs. the cost of treating your knee.

They may come up with some good decisions, like maybe x-ray your knee to determine if any bones are broken. Or they may decide that your knee doesn't matter half as much as buying a supply of swine flu serum, so they will invest no time or money at all in your small problem.

Your knee has become a political issue and will be evaluated and disposed of in that light.

This whole situation is predicated on two assumptions:

1.) All health care resources, including physicians' time and expertise, the means and tools of diagnosis and therapy, all of it, are community resources. They don't belong to any one person or corporation. They're like the Great Lakes; they're just out there.

2.) Your physical condition is everyone's business.

Is either one of these assumptions true? Or something you want to be true?

So you spend 12 or more years in medical and specialty studies, as an intern and resident, yadayadayada, all to become a public utility. After all, you said you wanted to help people. And then why all the study? Any treatment you can offer patients is predetermined by poltical functionaries and government accountants. Government accountants especially.

What about hospitals? They don't belong to anyone? They don't have to pay employees, buy equipment, turn some kind of profit so that they will attract investor money to pay for their construction and maintenance? What if your local Humana hospital no longer can make enough money to stay open? Then what happens? It may become part of your local tax burden.

When Medicaid went into effect in Illinois, at least five hospitals in poor city neighborhoods closed their doors. Their clientele were largely Medicaid/Medicare recipients. Those organizations don't pay the full cost for care. Those hospitals shut their doors. They simply don't exist anymore. People go to County Hospital instead, take a number, and wait all day in the Emergency Room for treatment.

And how much cost is generated by the governing bodies, enforcement agencies, political groups, etc. -- which are pretty much pimples on the butt of the actual practice of medicine? They aren't necessary for a citizen to visit a doctor, be examined, diagnosed, and treated. All these guide personnel and citizens committees just stand and watch, record, and evaluate. They serve no useful purpose in the health care process, except to provide a layer of control over it.

Does the practice of medicine require this additional layer of control? Or is it an obstruction and an unnecessary expense?

If you seriously want to cut the cost -- and I mean "cost" not "price" -- of medical care, get the politicians out of the system. They only add immeasurable and largely useless expense.

This is what it means to "politicize" an issue. Like women's rights. It's no longer your family's problem, Oprah needs to get involved and put it on TV so all kinds of strangers can become indignant over your husband's brutality and your own masochistic tendencies. And, by all means, let's vote on some aspect of this or another. Let's develop some kind of consensus, and in the case of bringing the government into an issue, let's make laws for "proper" behavior so that we lock up anyone who falls short of the standard devised by popular vote, or the "sigh meter."

Does anyone really want to live like this? Exhibitionists leap to mind. All others, not so much.

In the area of health care, with socialized medicine (making all health care resources community resources) and then especially inviting "representative citizens" in to help determine therapies -- this isn't even just plain-vanilla socialism. It's Marxist communism. Textbook Marxist communism. Osama can call it anything he likes, but if it walks like a duck....

Osama is a Marxist. Didn't I say so before? Need more evidence? Or is it more important to US citizens to find a Messiah to surrender to, rather than to take on the burden of living their own lives their own way?

It's just sad. In the words of Dante, from his account of hell: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

The Nanny State

Watched Prez Osama's speech to the AMA. First, very generally, something I find very disturbing about this person is the odd, almost drunken expression he gets on his face when people applaud him. He literally looks like he's melting into some sort of ga-ga emotion. This is positively weird. I'm not sure if this is narcissism or what. Sort of reminds me of Sally Field's "You love me! You really love me!" Only Sally Field didn't seem to abandon all reason the way the prez does. Is he so undone by flattery?

Regarding the speech itself, it raises more questions than it answers. What particularly struck me -- and I'm sure left many doctors wondering, as well -- is the changes in payment that Osama is proposing.

1.) Osama says doctors' pay should be "outcome-based." What the heck does that mean? If a patient dies, they don't get paid? If they misdiagnose something, they don't get paid? It is possible to misdiagnose something honestly, when one condition disguises another, for example, or if doctors are restricted in the diagnostic tests they can perform -- which is another proposal the prez made. Or, maybe the patient simply doesn't follow directions. Anyway, what exactly is "outcome-based pay" for doctors?

2.) Osama said doctors shouldn't be paid on a case-by-case basis, but for a whole treatment. Maybe he doesn't understand how doctors work? You don't get a cardiac surgeon to monitor after-surgery care, for example. A dermatologist might consult without contributing anything more. What constitutes a"whole treatment"?

To me, this sounds like he's suggesting that doctors take some kind of salary, no doubt determined by the Paymaster General, the new Compensation Czar Osama named last week. After all, once he's determined how much people at AIG and GM can make, this new czar will have plenty of time on his hands to try to control health care providers. Got to keep these government dudes busy or the general public might begin to wonder why, exactly, we have a Paymaster General in the first place, and that might lead to diminishing the number of people who can dictate policy without benefit of congressional input and reduce Osama's power. We couldn't have that in this administration.

3.) Osama says doctors should get bonuses when they're successful. Oh well, they used to have bonuses in the financial industry, and see how that worked out? The SEIU and Acorn didn't like it at all. It might indicate that some people are more equal than others. And exactly what kind of bonuses would doctors get? If they don't leave a sponge in your tummy after an appendectomy? If they actually cure someone? That's their job, isn't it?

Or is Osama talking about research? It's a possibility. Is research covered under Osama's health care plan? Where? In other nations with socialized medicine, research has been the first thing to go -- just too damn expensive.

4.) Osama keeps talking about preventive medicine. (He's actually says "preventative" -- which is a word that people have just made up. You really don't need the extra syllable.) Anway, preventive medicine has added considerably to the cost of health care in general. For example, getting that yearly PAP smear, mammogram, or now prostate exams. Even for people who have no family history of these problems or any symptoms. OK. Catching anything early can help to "cure" it, but the vast majority of these tests reveal nothing but a clean bill of health. And they cost the same whether doctors find anything or not.

I'm not saying regular testing is a bad idea; I'm just saying it's expensive and it won't reduce costs, except in those cases that do reveal a potential problem, and these are a very small percentage of cases.

Also, I've heard that these types of preventive tests actually are more useful for keeping machines busy to help pay down their costs. I mean, in any industry, you buy an expensive new machine, you've got to keep it going 24/7 to get any return-on-investment from it. The health care industry is not immune to this reality. It's like, you get a brand new MRI machine, you've got to start stacking up bodies to keep scanning pretty much 24 hours per day to keep up the payments on it.

And "prevention" generally means no smoking, eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly. So, how is this going to happen? Everybody already knows this. No matter how many billboards about cancer are pasted onto cigarette packs, 20% of Americans still smoke. Junk food is a whole industry. Kids don't like vegetables. I would guess that more people watch exercise on TV than actually exercise. That home stationery bicycle is useful mainly as a clothes hanger.

So how is this type of prevention to be enforced?

Picture droves of Health Care Tactical Squads in bright red lab coats and ski masks descending upon a suburban neighborhood, rousting couch potatoes from their living rooms and locking them into cages with just enough room for a treadmill. "Run!" they cry, holding a stop watch. "Run! Fifteen minutes and you'll get a Twinkie." And the Twinkie will be made of dessicated bean spouts and reconstituted soy milk.

I just can't wait.

Anyway.... Change of subject....

As I was signing on to the computer, heard that the Grand Wise and Perfectly Holy Poobahs in Iran are now firing upon the people who suspect election fraud in Iran. I mean, the protesters are being shot at and at least one apparently was killed. That's a sure sign of moral impeccability -- killing people who disagree with you.

Difficult to verify what's going on, since the Iranian government -- or should we say Holy Pantheon -- is blacking out all public communications, including cell phone service, Twitter, FaceBook and so on. I'm surprised they busy themselves with such trivia as technology. Why can't they just wave their magic wands?

Looks like a preview of the US's future, if, heaven forbid, we persist in smoking cigarettes, guzzling Coca-Cola, and munching on Cheetos. I mean, don't we absolutely need to be regulated? Life is just to precious to leave how and why we live all up to us as individuals. What we need is more and more control, layers of more government to make our decisions for us.

Somehow, I can't believe this is what George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, et. al., had in mind. And I don't believe the principles behind fair government change at all, no matter how big and complex a nation becomes. To call the USA a "free" country anymore is to misuse the word "free." Increasingly, it's becoming an over-taxed, over-regulated, and oppressive country.

My favorite quote is from Tom Jefferson: "If man is not fit to rule himself, how then can be fit to rule others?"

I guess the answer to that one is: You've got to manufacture some kind of Messiah with magical powers.

OK, OK. Let me see if I have this straight....

Prez Osama is proposing to reduce, cut, and ration health care to the poor and elderly -- that is Medicare/Medicaid recipients -- in order to extend "free" health insurance to... whom? The supposed 47 million people who do not have health insurance, including the young and healthy who don't want to pay for it or can't afford it, those who can afford it but don't want to spend the money, and illegal aliens.

Is this making any sense? Take it away from people who really do need it and give it to those who probably have other options, or have no real business making claims upon the tax dollars of American citizens.

I'm seeing very little logic in this, but then I'm looking for positive advantages for the human race, not the huge gains the nanny state would make in terms of controlling even the most personal aspects of everyone's lives.

So start again... If I were looking to seize control of US citizens and severely restrict their personal liberty, how would I go about it?

Oh. Ok. Now I see.

More later... We actually have some sunshine today in Chicago, which means lawn mowing and window washing.

Still don't know why

What continues to bother me about the USA's march into the dark night of socialism is... Why?

Is Prez Osama, Pazzo Pelosi and all the rest really, honestly willing to toss the whole country to the dogs to increase their base of power?

How sick is that?

Pazzo Pelosi, too, is doing all she can to stir up more anti-US hatred in the Middle East to step up the war and maximize the number of US soldiers killed there.

Why?

They all want to ensure that US citizens will live in dire poverty, hopelessness, and despair, with some subsistence-level economy, third-rate health care, and absolutely no way to improve it.

I can't even imagine the burden of hatred they carry for this country. They hate the USA so much they go through the b.s. involved in election campaigns, all the petty and brain-numbing business of government to acquire as much power as possible simply in order to .... destroy the nation.

I can understand ignorance and stupidity. But I can't understand deliberate destruction. It's so very sick and twisted.

Why?

If I hated this country that much, I'd get the hell out. They stay here and try to tear it all down.

Why?

Why don't they just leave us alone? I don't a give whit what they do, as long as they don't do it to me. Where did these jerks grow up? Surely not in America.

I'm too depressed to write anymore. I've really got to stop listening to the news.