Happiness or Freedom?

The Times of London editorializes on the choice our governments have between making the population happy - Obamacare? - and providing them freedom. It concludes freedom is more important with this final paragraph:


"Precisely because human life is prolifically diverse, the history of Utopian politics is littered with offences against freedom by people who thought they knew what the people really wanted. The economics of happiness invariably leads to the politics of paternalism. The happiness gurus would be better off starting with Aristotle’s generous account of flourishing, an idea that implies people choosing their own life course. If politicians need a single objective — and it is not obvious that they do — then setting the people free is a lot better than forcing them to be happy."


We are losing the wisdom of Aristotle and letting the politicians expand their power over us in the most successful experiment in individual freedom extant, just as our predecessors have allowed Emperors, Kings, Princes, et al, to control them.

Understanding Sarah Palin

"In Defense of Sarah Palin", a WSJ column by Norman Podhoretz, explains her impact on our politics.

TROOP DEATHS DOUBLE IN AFGHANISTAN

You won't hear this from the MSM - except maybe 1 inch column on page 23!

Read about it here.

Defend the MSM if you really believe they are neutral in their coverage - the definition of a news organization - or realize you are being swayed by an ideological guided press!

Tony Hillerman

I am reading the tenth Leaphorn-Chee novel of Tony Hillerman, a quite will known mystery writer, whose subject in a series of eighteen novels was the Navajo Tribal Police in Arizona/New Mexico - particularly Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, an older and younger officer with unique abilities to solve crimes.

Great reads if you are looking for relaxing stories and some insight to the American Indian culture. I would start with "The Blessing Way" to get a taste for it, and continue through them as I am. We biligaana can learn much about our predecessors in this land - their life, beliefs and religion.

The below paragraph is one that caught my eye the other day. I have driven across the dessert many times and I though this caught the feel of the Southwest Indian country quite well!



"Janet's Toyota topped the long climb out of the San Juan Basin and earth sloped away to the south - empty, rolling gray-tan grassland with the black line of the highway receding toward the horizon like the mark of a ruling pen. Miles to the south, the sun reflected from the windshield of a northbound vehicle, a blink of brightness. Ship Rock rose like an oversized, free-form Gothic cathedral just to their right, miles away but looking close. Ten miles ahead Table Mesa sailed through its sea of buffalo grass, reminding Chee of the ultimate aircraft carrier. Across the highway from it, slanting sunlight illuminated the ragged black form of Barber Peak, a volcanic throat to geologists, a meeting place for witches in local lore."


From "Coyote Waits", tenth in a series of eighteen Leaphorn-Chee mysteries, Chapter 6.

STIMULUS AND JOBS

Read this and weep! 49 of 50 states have lost jobs since the stimulus was enacted.

ObamaFare's real purpose by Democrat Max Baucus

Listen to this 46 second clip of Senator Baucus explaining the real reason for ObamaFare. You will then understand what has happened over the last year.

And guess who will get the $$$$? It will be their constituency, with the hope this will keep them in power for years.

It won't!

Social Security and ObamaFare

The NYT has this article today - an appropriate warning to us all - on the approaching insolvency of the Social Security system. Just what this country needed was a huge increase in expenditures for ObamaFare when our financial future is in jeopardy.


"This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office."


Their last prediction was this would not happen until 2016! Gives you a warm feeling about their ObamaFare prediction!

What Obama's Deficits Mean to our Country!

Investor's Business Daily editorializes on the "Sovereign Danger" in our runaway debt. We should all pay close attention - you can watch the results in Greece, Portugal, et al, today. Do you really want this?

The Real Meaning of ObamaFare! Important read!!

Kevin O'Brien in the Cleveland Plain Dealer summarizes the Dem's motives with ObamaFare as clearly and concisely as I've seen. Read and THINK about his points. The entire column is below:

"Don't let up until 'health care' bill is repealed: Kevin O'Brien"

by Kevin O'Brien, The Plain Dealer

"The Democrats in Congress and the White House have forced upon the United States of America a federal health care plan designed for people who are too stupid, incompetent and weak to manage their own affairs.

Such people certainly do exist among us, but to gear the nation's health care system to them is a terrible idea. Unless, of course, one happens to be part of our new ruling class.

It's so much more fun to be on the telling end of, "Do this; don't do that," than on the being-told end.

Politics and power -- not anything related to improving health care -- is what this whole, long wrangle has been about from the beginning: Putting the governed in the position of needing the consent of the government to live their lives, and ensuring that promoters of the power of the state do the governing in perpetuity.

There was a time when the politicians who sat in Congress and in the White House understood that they served the people. They were bound to us and subject to our will
.
The relationship has been changing for about a century, not coincidentally with the growth of Washington's power and reach. Most of the change has taken place in three convulsive periods.

First came the New Deal, which introduced government paternalism. Next came the Great Society, from which the nanny state emerged. Now comes "health care reform," and Americans are faced with the prospect of trading what's left of their individual liberty -- and a great deal of their wealth -- for a blatantly false promise of health security.

Oh, yes, Obamacare will get a few more people covered. But what "coverage" will mean is merely a place in line to await treatment. That line will grow longer and longer as expenses increase, as care is rationed, as the medical profession shrinks, as the incentives to innovate dry up and blow away, and as a bureaucracy dedicated chiefly to its own growth and preservation shifts the purpose of medicine away from healing and toward the making and enforcement of rules.

In short, we will buy -- at tremendous expense, using money we don't have -- a system far inferior to the one we have now.

There's a partisan political element to this outcome, too. You can see it in the e-mails that Eric Schultz, late of the Al Franken Senate campaign and now spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is busily sending out about Republicans who have called for repeal of the health care takeover bill: They're trying to take away your health care!

You'll hear that over and over again, because it's the line the Democrats believe will keep them in power forever, once they endure just one or two losing election cycles. They think that once the Republicans regain Congress and the presidency, they won't have the guts to follow through on repeal pledges.

But the Republicans must follow through, because that's only half of the Democratic strategy. Here's the other half: Once their bureaucratic, financially unsustainable, lower-quality, lower-access parody of today's excellent health care system structure is fully in place, the Democrats can add a new threat: "Do as you're told, or we'll take away your health care."

That's what happens when you give government power over your life. The state giveth and the state taketh away. Buy insurance or we put you in jail.

The Democrats think you're too stupid to catch on, too incompetent to get organized and too weak to fight back.

They really believe that in one brief moment of uncontested power, they have set in motion a process of subjugation that will radically change not only the politics of America but also the character of its people.

The people need to prove them wrong. And the Republicans the people put in the Congress and the White House need to have the guts to do the right thing for the health of the country and its citizens: Repeal this monster before it can sink its socialistic roots into our soil.

This is far from over.

Come November 2010 and November 2012, there needs to be hell to pay -- and that needs to be only the beginning."


Don't be a "useful idiot" supporting this subterfuge called "HealthCare Reform". The REAL purpose is clear!

The Problem With Our "Entitlement" Society

The Dem's have just started us down the road to the largest entitlement from the Government we have ever seen - though it is certainly not their first. The problem becomes additive.

Mark Steyn with his great insight as an observer of America, says the following:


"As Europe demonstrates, a determined state can change the character of a people in the space of a generation or two. Look at what the Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population: That's what happened in Britain."


I will repeat the same old adage as a warning to my lefty friends:


Be careful - you may get what you wish for!

Victor Davis Hanson

In a subscript to his column at Pajama's Media, Victor Davis Hanson explains the "playing field" the Dem's have established for the foreseeable future:


"Subscript: Do Democrats realize that we really have crossed the Rubicon? In the future when the Republicans gain majorities (and they will), the liberal modus operandi will be the model—bare 51% majorities, reconciliation, the nuclear option, talk of deem and pass, not a single Democrat vote—all ends justifying the means in order to radically restructure vast swaths of American economic and social life. Is someone unhinged at the DNC? They just blew up any shred of bipartisan consensus when their President polls below 50%, the Democratically-controlled Congress below 20%, and health care reform less than 50%. Usually unpopular leaders and their unpopular ideas seek the shelter of minority rights and prerogatives. What will they do when they are in the minority—since they’ve entered the arena, boasted “let the games begin” and shouted “by any means necessary”?"



Let the games begin! November is not far away.

If Obamacare passes...

this column in the Aspen Times summarizes why Obama should get our thanks. A short read for my lefty friends which will open your eyes to what is happening.

Peggy Noonan's Obamacare Conclusion

Peggy Noonan concludes her "Now for the Slaughter" column on the tactics of Obama and his administration on Obamacare with this paragraph:


"And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass."


She seems to assume it is going to pass. I still hold out hope the Dem's will realize what they are doing and stop it. We should know by Monday!

Obama's Job Approval

RealClearPolitics average negative for the first time. This 'cramdown' of Obamacare is real popular with the country.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens

In reading an article by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker I noted this quote which helps me understand the thinking - and problem, in my mind - with the "liberal" wing of the Court:


"If it is not necessary to decide a case on a very broad constitutional ground, when other grounds are available, then doesn't that create the likelihood that people will think you're not following the rules?"


Seems to me ALL cases should be analyzed "on a very broad constitutional ground" and only on other grounds if it is found they are not at odds with the constitution. Is our law not controlled by the Constitution?

Can someone explain his logic to me?

Wonder why Obama and Dem's are committing political "suicide"?

James Taranto in WSJ Best of the Web Today gets it:


"There seems to be an emotional desperation at work here. The legislative success of ObamaCare has become so tied up with Obama's sense of himself that he feels he must push ahead--and to some extent, the leaders in Congress feel the same way. Obama is not the calm rationalist he seemed during the campaign. But while there's a place for passion in politics, to be governed by a politician who fails to govern his passions is a frightening and creepy experience."


Creepy is a good adjective for what we are watching!

Why Obama in Unhappy

From WSJ Best of the Web Today:


"The latest effort to psychoanalyze President Obama comes from Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post. Hiatt offers "a theory about why President Obama is having a tough political time right now: He doesn't seem all that happy being president."

But Hiatt gets it backward. Obama isn't having political difficulty because he's unhappy; he's unhappy because he's having political difficulty. Or, as the president himself put it in an Ohio ObamaCare speech yesterday:


'The American people want to know if it's still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don't know about the politics. But I know what's right.'


He knows what's right. And he cares so much about the American people that he is determined to do what is right, whether we want it done to us or not. Yet he keeps coming up against delays and obstructions. Where's the fairness in that? If he's omniscient and benevolent, doesn't he deserve to be omnipotent too?"


That's it! Obama believed the U.S.Presidency was omnipotent, not simply one of three great powers who have created the greatest nation on earth over the last 200+ years. Silly us, not agreeing with him!

Governments true obligation in healthcare - Paul Ryans view

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin's First Congressional District's Congressman, spoke to a group in Washington D.C. in January regarding Obamacare. This two paragraph commentary on the Constitution and the Government's responsibility is all anyone should need to understand to see Obamacare for what it really is:


"Under the terms of our Constitution, every individual has a right to care for their health, just as they have a right to eat. These rights are integral to our natural right to life—and it is government's chief purpose to secure our natural rights. But the right to care for one's health does not imply that government must provide health care, any more than our right to eat, in order to live, requires government to own the farms and raise the crops.

Government's constitutional obligations in regard to protecting such rights are normally met by establishing the conditions for free markets—markets which historically provide an abundance of goods and services, at an affordable cost, for the largest number. When free markets seem to be failing to meet this goal—and I would argue that the delivery of health care today is an example of where this is the case—government, rather than seeking to supply the need itself, should look to see if its own interventions are the root of the problem, and should make adjustments to unleash competition and choice."


The people simply want the Government to make adjustments to the free market to unleash competition and choice.

Are You Pro-Choice and Love Obama?

WSJ's Best of the Web Today exposes some revealing thoughts on both subjects based on the Dem's Obamacare justification and the Left's analysis of Obama's performance to date.

A thought provoking commentary on both subjects.

"There Is No Keynesian Miracle"

Paul Johnson, a respected British historian and writer, explains why our administration, Keynes and many leftist economists are wrong. Let's hope they wake up!

Penultimate paragraph summarizes well:


"It would be a welcome change to see a serious contender put forward a basic proposition of economic and financial policy such as the following axiom: "There is nothing essentially different between running government finances and those of a family. The same penalties for recklessness and folly apply to both. And, in both, the same prudence, integrity and self-sacrifice will bring success. Anyone who tells you different is deceiving you.""


Keynesian Economics is self serving to the left, allowing them to acquire POWER at little cost to themselves, as is Cap and Trade and Obamacare.

Bizarre Paul Krugman - the extreme partisan!

WSJ's Best of the Web Today leads Friday's column with a clear example of Paul Krugman's columns are driven not by a Nobel Prize Winners intellect, but by his SUPERSIZE leftist agenda!

Of course, that is why he won the Nobel Prize in the first place!

If you read him, take all his points with a HUGE "grain of salt"!

Obamafare/Reconciliation Supporters: Read this before you proceed!

Today's WSJ summarizes the disengenuousness and HUGE costs to the Democratic Party if BHO and his cohorts proceed.

Note this paragraph:


"President Clinton preferred to use reconciliation to pass HillaryCare in the 1990s, but he was dissuaded by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who argued that it would be an abuse of the process. Mr. Byrd, author of a four-volume history of Senate rules and procedures, told the Washington Post last March that "The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation—a process intended for deficit reduction—to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate's institutional role," specifically citing health reform and cap and trade. "


President Clinton, with all his arrogance and problems, may look like a hero by the time BHO gets done!

Guns and the Left's Unintended Consequences!

The following quote from the Washington Times in todays Patriot Post Chronicle should help persuade my lefty friends of the good the Second Amendment does and the bad results of attempted "gun control" in light of yesterdays Supreme Court review of Chicago's handgun ban. Murder rate decreased 25% in Washington, D.C.! Not sure how many lives that is, but know it is a hell of a lot more people in Chicago! Or do you want to keep the ban and let those people die?


"The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city's murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind ... as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban. Gun controllers screamed to high heaven that impending disaster would follow the court's decision to junk some of the district's gun controls. One of those screaming the loudest was Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who incorrectly predicted more gun freedom would lead to more death and Wild West shootouts. Instead, in Washington, murder rates rose when the handgun ban was in effect and fell once the regulations were removed. Chicago's 1982 ban faired no better. The forthcoming third edition of 'More Guns, Less Crime' shows that in the 17 years after a ban on new handguns went into effect, there were only two years when Chicago's murder rate was as low as it was in 1982. The Windy City's murder rate fell relative to America's other 50 largest cities before the ban and rose relative to them afterward. ... That increase in murder rates isn't surprising. Every time gun bans have been tried anywhere, murder rates have risen. Whether one looks at Ireland, Jamaica or England and Wales, the experience has been the same. Not only did murder rates fail to decline as promised, but the rates actually increased following gun bans. In general, gun-control laws disarm law-abiding citizens -- not criminals who don't care about the law. The lesson is that freedom and safety go hand in hand." --The Washington Times


Give this some serious thought. When guns are banned, only criminals have guns and all crime rates increase! It is not brain surgery!