R. Lee Ermey takes on the Obama Administration

As far as live-tv goes, this is gutsier than Kanye West's snide remarks about President Bush after Katrina. I only have two words:

OOOH RAH!!!

Joe Friday and Obama

Yes we can

But should we?

From politics to science to economics to religion, the ability to do something doesn't mean that it is right for us to do something. To often, drunk with our own power, we rush to do something simply because we can - rather than thinking through why the limitation was there in the first place. Chesterton put it this way:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

-- The Thing, in "The Drift from Domesticity" (1929)

California, I'm looking at you.

Why we need vouchers

I'm a homeschooler. Our current tax code doesn't let me deduct a single penny for educational expenses; nor is there a penny of help. (And obviously, we don't get a child care deduction or credit because my wife is home.)

How much education could YOU buy in your area if you had even $5000 to spend per child?e

Scary

Homeschooling WINSday

Okay...I know this is supposed to be "Worship Wednesday"...but I've sorta got that covered at the parish blog.

Today I just want to briefly highlight a that a German couple has been granted political asylum in the US because...get this...they wanted to home educate their children. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany. After having their children forcibly removed and taken to school, they contacted the HSDLA who filed on their behalf.

I was glad to hear that they'll be settling in what used to be my back yard, Morristown, TN.

President's Day Tridentine Style

Fidem meam obligo
vexillo civitatum
Americae Foederatarum,
et rei publicae
pro qua stat,
uni nationi
Deo ducente,
non dividendae,
cum libertate
iustitiaque
omnibus.

Taxman

Obama mashup to the Beatle's "The Taxman."

Hope and Change on Healthcare

Do you still have the candidate you'd hoped for? Or did things change?

Public Option for kids

This is a youtube video - you'll have to come to the blog or go to the host.
Because some people still don't understand basic economics.

If your healthcare reform doesn't deal with the rising cost of healthcare by opening the path to private competition, then you're just shuffling money around.

I Hate to Say I Told You So

But I told you so. Now the AU (arrogant Unitarians?) has its collective panties in a wad over the signing of the Manhattan Declaration.

At a press conference today, Religious Right leaders and Roman Catholic bishops unveiled a joint statement criticizing laws that allow reproductive choice and same-sex marriage.

Hmm...Roman Catholics acting catholic? That is news! I really wish AU could get their story straight.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This declaration is certain to be deeply divisive. These religious leaders want to see their doctrines imposed by force of law, and that goes against everything America stands for.

“I am optimistic that the people in the pews will not heed their leaders’ misguided call to action,” Lynn said. “Polls show that most church-goers do not want to see their faith politicized. But I am also well aware that religious leaders have vast lobbying power that cannot be ignored.”

Aww...I preferred it when they were saying that the Roman Catholics only wanted to stop helping people at all!

Lynn noted the House version of health-care reform was revised at the behest of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to curtail women’s access to abortion.

So which is it, AU? Should they have stayed out of politics altogether (when they energized their base to lobby for universal health-care)? Or is it only when they bring to their political activism who they are as people of faith?

Chinese Healthcare in America

As the New York Times reported Sunday, Chinese officials are questioning American officials about health care reform in the U.S. As the Times wrote, “The Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal health care....They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the [U.S.] deficit.”

Why would the Chinese be so interested in our deficit? Well, for all intents and purposes, China is the official banker of the United States government. China is the number one foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities. This has MAJOR implications on our independence and security, as well as our stance on issues of human rights.

The hard questions they are asking right now are about how much the health care bill will raise the deficit. And make no mistake, if the Chinese decide not to continue financing our debt, the dollar could drop through the floor. America could have a huge financial crisis.

Before asking your government whether or not we can afford this new interventionist policy, perhaps it would be wise to ask the Chinese.


We cannot spend our way out of debt. We must conserve resources and invest wisely in the surest turn-around.

The Wisdom of a Constitutionally Limited Government

I can't for the life of me see any justification for the massive private-sector take over that is happening at the hands of President Obama. Maybe right now you think that only a firm and wise government (such as is reigning under The One) is the only way to fix our multiple conundra. (Which means you've lost faith in people to be solid individuals, but are curiously trusting an individual to fix our mess.)

If you still have warm feelings toward Obama and his good intentions, ask yourself this: Will you feel comfortable one day when the appointees of President Romney or President Palin are exercising unconstitutional, unauthorized, unreviewable authority to restructure the economy the way they see fit?

Because I can tell you that I'm pretty upset that when the Republicans were in power, they brushed aside reminders that some day a Democratic president would be exercising the vast unconstitutional powers that Bush was accumulating in the White House.

Democrat friends, please don't ignore the risks of giving more power to a federal government that will one day be run by conservatives. Because eventually both sides will be appalled by the uses that are made of those powers when that day comes.

Obama's Hypocrisy on Censorship

President Obama began his visit to China with an exhortation to free up censorship and allow the citizenry to question and criticize their government without fear of reprisal.

President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

Yeah. Ask Fox News how well Obama takes a little criticism. Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, was interviewed last month and said: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” (Source: NYT)

It was a delicately balanced message and Obama couched his admonitions with words calling for cooperation, heavy with praise and American humility.

Our country needs to apologize to China? When did that happen? We've stood up for their freedom for 70 years! And our economies energize each other, raising the standard of living for both countries.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

I'm in a conundrum. I have no idea which government snitch line I should report this to. - should I report this quote to fishy@whitehouse.gov or flag@whitehouse.gov? I just can't decide which one best holds the populace accountable to the government. OOOPS! I meant that the government is accountable to the people.

Exactly

AU Trifecta

And again with AU. Now they say Rome can't talk about marriage.

“I am amazed that church officials would threaten to stop helping the disadvantaged because they are being asked to treat all citizens of the District fairly,” he continued. “They seem to have lost all perspective. How strong is their commitment to helping the poor if they’re willing to take this hardline stance?

It seems that everybody is required to take a break from any opinions that religious persons may have, but religious people don't have the same right of reprieve?

I think the "REV" in "Rev. Barry Lynn" stands for revisionista.

AU Speaks

So they want us to keep the church from advocating for conscience bound issues in healthcare, but it's okay for the Roman Church to lobby for healthcare in general? GIVE ME A BREAK!

Keep Religious Doctrine Out of the Law | Americans United

Jail Time If You Don't Buy Health Insurance

Wow. There is now proof that the 1098 page bill (which none of these starry-eyed legislators have actually read) contains a provision to SEND YOU TO JAIL IF YOU DON'T BUY HEALTH INSURANCE.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

What is this? Does anybody remember the STAMP ACT??? Let's not lose sight of the fact that Congress has no constitutional authority to make us buy their program. Government intervention is one of the biggest aggravating factors in this crisis, and more government intervention is not going to help.

The current health care disaster in America is not simply a problem of people refusing to buy health insurance; it's an issue of people not being able to afford to buy health insurance. When the annual insurance premium for a family of four is something above $13,000, that's a terrible financial burden that many Americans simply can't afford to pay -- especially when so many people have lost their jobs due to the faltering economy. Worse, the government says that health insurance companies can't compete across state lines for your business (and we all know that the best way to reign in costs while maintaining quality, is through market competition).

The brutal facts of the matter are inescapable: The American people are too broke to buy their own health insurance, and the American government is too broke to buy it for them. The whole nation is going bankrupt over runaway health care COSTS. Any measure claiming to be healthcare reform that does nothing to address the COSTS is completely bogus.

Government Health Care as Good as the Post Office

Repost with supporting arguments at the bottom.

Yeah, BHO...that'll win us over.

Seriously...where has the government forcibly taken over an industry and made it better?

Government has never reduced the cost of a service - it cannot - but it can redirect access through the use of force (in the end, the police power of the state to harm or imprison us). Seniors know this, and that's why they're being so patriotic right now. Here's comment from today's WSJ.

Obama's Senior Moment

Elderly Americans are turning out in droves to fight ObamaCare, and President Obama is arguing back that they have nothing to worry about. Allow us to referee. While claims about euthanasia and "death panels" are over the top, senior fears have exposed a fundamental truth about what Mr. Obama is proposing: Namely, once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted.

***

Far from being a scare tactic, this is a logical conclusion based on experience and common-sense. Once health care is a "free good" that government pays for, demand will soar and government costs will soar too. When the public finally reaches its taxing limit, something will have to give on the care and spending side. In a word, care will be rationed by politics.

Mr. Obama's reply is that private insurance companies already ration, by deciding which treatments are covered and which aren't. However, there's an ocean of difference between coverage decisions made under millions of voluntary private contracts and rationing via government. An Atlantic Ocean, in fact. Virtually every European government with "universal" health care restricts access in one way or another to control costs, and it isn't pretty.

The British system is most restrictive, using a black-box actuarial formula known as "quality-adjusted life years," or QALYs, that determines who can receive what care. If a treatment isn't deemed to be cost-effective for specific populations, particularly the elderly, the National Health Service simply doesn't pay for it. Even France—which has a mix of public and private medicine—has fixed reimbursement rates since the 1970s and strictly controls the use of specialists and the introduction of new medical technologies such as CT scans and MRIs.

Yes, the U.S. "rations" by ability to pay (though in the end no one is denied actual care). This is true of every good or service in a free economy and a world of finite resources but infinite wants. Yet no one would say we "ration" houses or gasoline because those goods are allocated by prices. The problem is that governments ration through brute force—either explicitly restricting the use of medicine or lowering payments below market rates. Both methods lead to waiting lines, lower quality, or less innovation—and usually all three.

A lot of talk has centered on what Sarah Palin inelegantly called "death panels." Of course rationing to save the federal fisc will be subtler than a bureaucratic decision to "pull the plug on grandma," as Mr. Obama put it. But Mrs. Palin has also exposed a basic truth. A substantial portion of Medicare spending is incurred in the last six months of life.

From the point of view of politicians with a limited budget, is it worth spending a lot on, say, a patient with late-stage cancer where the odds of remission are long? Or should they spend to improve quality, not length, of life? Or pay for a hip or knee replacement for seniors, when palliative care might cost less? And who decides?

In Britain, the NHS decides, and under its QALYs metric it generally won't pay more than $22,000 for treatments to extend a life six months. "Money for the NHS isn't limitless," as one NHS official recently put it in response to American criticism, "so we need to make sure the money we have goes on things which offer more than the care we'll have to forgo to pay for them."

Before he got defensive, Mr. Obama was open about this political calculation. He often invokes the experience of his own grandmother, musing whether it was wise for her to receive a hip replacement after a terminal cancer diagnosis. In an April interview with the New York Times, he wondered whether this represented a "sustainable model" for society. He seems to believe these medical issues are all justifiably political questions that government or some panel of philosopher kings can and should decide. No wonder so many seniors rebel at such judgments that they know they could do little to influence, much less change.

Mr. Obama has also said many times that the growth of Medicare spending must be restrained, and his budget director Peter Orszag has made it nearly his life's cause. We agree, but then why does Mr. Obama want to add to our fiscal burdens a new Medicare-like program for everyone under 65 too? Medicare already rations care, refusing, for example, to pay for virtual colonsocopies and has payment policies or directives to curtail the use of certain cancer drugs, diagnostic tools, asthma medications and many others. Seniors routinely buy supplemental insurance (Medigap) to patch Medicare's holes—and Medicare is still growing by 11% this year.

The political and fiscal pressure to further ration Medicare would increase exponentially if government is paying for most everyone's care. The better way to slow the growth of Medicare is to give seniors more control over their own health care and the incentives to spend wisely, by offering competitive insurance plans. But this would mean less control for government, not more.

***

It's striking that even the AARP—which is run by liberals who favor national health care—has been backing away from support for Mr. Obama's version. The AARP leadership's Democratic sympathies will probably prevail in the end, perhaps after some price-control sweeteners are added for prescription drugs. But AARP is out of touch with its own members, who have figured out that their own health and lives are at stake in this debate over ObamaCare. They know that when medical discretion clashes with limited government budgets, medicine loses.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Single Payer Spin

If you're reading on Facebook - click original post for youtube.


How anyone believes this man's claims to be a moderate - in spite of his own words - is beyond me.