The "Right" To Healthcare is a Threat to Life and Liberty

Ross Kaminsky for The American Spectator here gets close to making a point which needs to be made more often, more forcefully, and more primary, namely, that one man's right to healthcare comes at the expense of another man's right not to provide it if he doesn't wish to:

[I]f health care is a right, that means that an American who for whatever reason does not have access to a doctor must be provided that access, whether that means redistributing taxpayer money to the would-be patient or even the potential of forcing a doctor to provide his services in an area "underserved" by health care professionals. ...

In other words, when one person's right is forcibly taken away for the benefit of someone else, it can no longer be a right any more than taxes extracted for the benefit of the poor may be deemed charity.

A doctor practices medicine by choice, not by compulsion, so we can no more force him to provide care than we can force people to become doctors. But, of course, if the courts decide that government can compel expenditure for health insurance, then it is a short distance to compelling other things, indeed anything, at which point this country is finished, if it isn't already.

Quibbling about how the inherent limitations accruing to conceptions of positive rights shows that they are not rights, such as that Obamacare under Berwick's rules will be provided as a right only

up to a certain age, a certain degree of sickness, or a certain cost,

has utilitarian value but is really beside the point.

A different contract governs the relations between a doctor and his patient, which Obamacare would overthrow, as full of negative pledges as the Bill of Rights is full of negative rights, the most famous of which people remember as "to do no harm."

The real offense of Obamacare is the compulsion at the heart of it, as real as the oppression of any tyranny.

What we need to stop it is a Hippocratic Revolt.

Effete Senate Republicans Rest on A Letter and A Resolution on START

The news that a resolution of understanding will be attached to the START treaty along with a letter from President Obama to address the misgivings of Republicans reminds one of the Executive Order on abortion the president provided when healthcare reform passed in March.

The language of the treaty will be the law, not the resolution nor the letter from the president, as surely as abortions will be paid for under Obamacare despite the Executive Order.

Fill your boots, men, and stop acting like the sissies everybody thinks you are.

Story here.

Pretty Boy Hannity Gets a Lesson in the Constitution

From the American Thinker, here:

Dear Sean:

Concerning the 17th amendment, the argument for its repeal absolutely centers around states' rights.  If Senators are elected by elected reps and senators, they are more likely to defend their state against federal encroachments (upholding the 10th amendment), than they are if elected by the general population.  Any federal program - ObamaCare, the financial reform bill, etc., -  which increases burdens on state budgets would not sit well with Senators answerable to congressional bodies in their state.

Greg Halvorson

Judge Objects to Obamacare Bait and Switch: The Mandate Became a Tax

From Peter Wehner at Commentary Magazine:

Judge Hudson writes, “Despite pre-enactment representations to the contrary by the Executive and Legislative branches, the Secretary now argues that the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision is, in essence, a ‘tax penalty.’”

That’s a polite way of saying that the Obama administration willfully misled the public during the health-care debate. In fact, President Obama repeatedly denied that the mandate was a tax — but now, in order to pass constitutional muster, his administration is insisting it is. I urge you to watch ... [w]hen ... Obama scolds Stephanopoulos. “That’s not true, George,” the president says. “[It] is absolutely not a tax increase.”

Now the president and his administration are arguing exactly the opposite.

This is a deeply cynical maneuver on the part of the man who promised to put an end to cynical political acts. Like so much of what Obama said, this promise was fraudulent.

The complete entry is here, with links.

Obamacare is Not Just Un-American, It's Anti-Human

In a story at TheHill.com here, reporting on the ruling of a Virginia judge that the individual mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional, we are met with the following bizarrerie:

The Obama administration argues healthcare is different from other commercial markets, because — illness being both inevitable and involuntary — everyone ultimately requires some form of care.

By this reasoning, government should mandate that the baby pay for his own birth, and the corpse for his own burial, the first and the last of the involuntaries which bookend human existence. 

Obamacare is not just un-American. It's anti-human.

Massive Social Security Hearings Backlog: Millions Waiting, Many More Than Two Years

Sure that Obamacare thing will be different. You won't have to wait that long. Maybe only half as much! You can live with that hernia for a year, right?

As reported here:

A Senate subcommittee is expected to hear testimony on Monday at a field hearing in Akron, Ohio, about the rising number of threats, as well as the status of the massive backlog in applications for disability benefits, which are available to people who can't work because of medical problems.

Nearly 2 million people are waiting to find out if they qualify for benefits, with many having to wait more than two years to see their first payment.

The Time to Get Serious About Coastal Defense is Long Past

In the summer of 2009, after Russian nuclear submarines were detected only 200 miles off our East coast, one commentator on the subsequent news story which bragged about our ability to detect  two  boats thought saying nothing about it would have been smarter in the absence of an official recommendation that the US actually beef up its coastal defenses with conventional defensive submarines. The reason? They're might have been three Russian subs.

The US military's response to the California mystery missile incident 35 miles off the coast of Los Angeles on Monday hardly inspired more confidence. We should have said nothing at all. Instead we said we didn't know what it was. Piling on to the airplane contrail theory a day later only made that worse, giving the impression the military was grasping at straws.

Unfortunately, from the commander in chief on down our government and military give the impression of being run by un-serious people. From the delay measured in days in responding to the Christmas Day underwear bomber to telegraphing our disengagement schedules in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's as if matters of war and peace are at best distractions from the really important matters like Obamacare, repealing DADT and defending the Ground Zero Mosque.

We could learn something about coastal defense from the Chinese, who understand the realities of American forward air, surface and submarine operations off their waters all too well. They have embarked on an ambitious naval modernization to counter our activities, which includes a commitment to robust coastal defense and power projection with submarines of varying designs. One such submarine, a Song, punked the USS Kitty Hawk in October 2006 over there, and it may be that Monday's incident over here was the work of a lately launched submarine of more recent design:

As other nations continue to develop naval capabilities we need to recognize that the operation of submarines off the US coast is going to become more common, not less. Indeed, what is the first thing China will do when tensions at sea rise over Taiwan or some other matter? Most likely, the deployment of submarines off the coast of Guam, Sasebo, Pearl Harbor, and if the PLA Navy has any strategic thinking at all, San Diego. ...

But this is what the US Navy needs to think about... the submarines off Guam, Sasebo, and Pearl Harbor can be Yuan class, because Yuans appear to have much better endurance for submerged operations than Song class submarines do, but for west coast operations it will be nuclear submarines.

Whether or not a missile was fired off the California coast this week to send such a message to America, we'd better get busy and start preparing for defensive submarine operations ourselves. Because sooner or later, Chinese boomers will come calling on the west coast just like the Russians do on the east.

 But we'll have to get serious first.

Net Republican Pickups 61

Republican pickups number 64 gross, but the net must subtract Democrat pickups, which were 3: the at-large seat in Delaware vacated by primary defeated Mike Castle in the Senate race, Abercrombie's seat in Hawaii only very temporarily occupied by a Republican, and Cao's seat in Louisiana, who lost as the only Republican voting for Obamacare.

So net 61 Republican pickups, as shown at Real Clear Politics, with 8 races still not called.

Tuesday, In a Nutshell

From the inimitable Pat McIlheran, for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Nothing was so fatal to House Democrats, especially newbies, than to have voted for Obamacare. Dozens fell, including Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Appleton). The one Republican who favored it lost.

Running against it saved the jobs of 11 out of 34 Democrats who had opposed the bill, and a popular Democratic governor won West Virginia's Senate seat only after he reversed to say he'd oppose Obamacare.

In Wisconsin, the Senate race became a referendum after incumbent Russ Feingold stood firm for Obamacare. Victorious challenger Ron Johnson spent the campaign telling how it was the bill's passage that goaded him into running. At every turn, he said he was convinced it is a government takeover that will kill innovation.

He pointed out repeatedly that fear of the plan's costs were depressing the economy.

Johnson won, 52% to 47%.

You'll not want to miss the rest here. 

Why They Lost: House Democrat Casualty Lists for November 2, 2010

In politics it always pays to avoid controversy if you want to survive.

If I'm counting correctly, there are 64 Republican pickups from the Democrats in the House as of this morning over at Real Clear Politics, with 9 races still not called in Arizona (2), California (2), Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Virginia and Washington (Grijalva, Giffords, McNerney, Costa, Bean, Chandler, Maffei, Connolly and Larsen).

In 50 of these 64 races lost by Democrats, incumbents were defending seats, and 33 of those, or 66%, had voted FOR Obamacare in March, despite its unpopularity in the polls: Oberstar [L], Titus [f], Ortiz [L], Kirkpatrick [f], Mitchell [BD], Salazar [BDL], Markey [fBD], Pomeroy [BDL], Rodriguez [L], Hill [BDL], Boyd [BD], Klein, Spratt [L], Perriello [fL], Etheridge [L], Wilson [BDL], Boccieri [fL], Kosmas [f], Grayson [f], Halvorson [f], Foster, Hare, Schauer [f], Shea-Porter, Hall [L], Scott Murphy [BD], Driehaus [fL], Kilroy [f], Carney [BDL], Kanjorski [L], Dahlkemper [fBDL], Pat Murphy [fBD], and Kagen.

The remaining 17 incumbents lost despite voting AGAINST Obamacare: Minnick [fBD], Bright [fBDst], Sandlin [BD], Taylor [BDst], Nye [fBD], Boucher, Space [BDst], Marshall [BDst], Kratovil [fBD], Skelton [st], Childers [BDst], Adler [f], Teague [fst], McMahon [f], Arcuri [BD], Lincoln Davis [BDst] and Edwards.

20 of the 64 who lost were freshmen [marked f], representing 63% of the 32 freshmen elected with Obama in 2008, and 31% of the total.

Of 54 Blue Dogs on the coalition's list in March at the time of the Obamacare vote, 22 were defeated yesterday [marked BD], or 41% of that membership. 3 races were still too close to call: Chandler [st], Costa and Giffords.

Of 21 Stupak Amendment supporters who proved it by voting NO on Obamacare [marked st], 8 still lost yesterday. Of 32 more who proved they didn't really believe in the Stupak Amendment by voting YES on Obamacare [marked L], 16 lost.

The distribution of self-definitions shows that the group most likely to get booted was the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs (22 associations), undoubtedly because the voters saw that despite the self-identification their voting records were anything but fiscally prudent. "Methinks Thou dost protest too much."

Next most likely to get booted were freshmen (20 associations). Inexperience makes you vulnerable by definition. The vast majority of new business fails, which is why spawn are numbered in the millions.

Pro-lifers in name only come next in vulnerability (16 associations). It's best not to lie about matters so serious because you will be found out eventually.

The least vulnerable among these losing Democrats? Those who were pro-life and meant it (8 associations), and those who defined themselves not at all (7 associations).

The Official Pace Car for Obamacare

Remember This Health Insurance Premiums Whopper?

"If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change under my plan is that we will lower premiums."

-- Barack Hussein Obama, speech in Canton, Ohio, Monday October 27, 2008

A new survey of companies by Hewitt Associates here projects an 8.8% overall increase in premiums for 2011, 11% to 22% of which is directly caused by ObamaCare.

Obama: "We Are Going To Have Hand-to-Hand Combat"

The Los Angeles Times has the story here:

"They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate," he said. "If they're successful in doing that, they've already said they're going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill."

Suddenly it's OK to use this kind of speech.

Just seven months ago Democrats were accusing Republicans of trying to foment physical violence over the passage of Obamacare because they used this kind of vivid language of "fighting." Within a week the FBI had raided the Hutaree militia in southeast Michigan and other states, accusing them of planning an armed revolt against the government. Google "Republicans threaten violence over healthcare" and see how many million  results you get. It was an hysterical reaction designed to incite hysteria, and perhaps goad someone into making a mistake which would be very politically valuable to the Democrats.

This is the m/o of leftist extremism.

"THE MOST DANGEROUS AND INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WE HAVE EVER HAD"

Not my words, but those of the Jewish atheist Nat Hentoff:

July 12, 2010

Health Care Rationing Obama Believes In

By Nat Hentoff

As a reporter, I do not use euphemisms - such as calling murderous terrorists "militants" or "activists." And as an American, I can exercise my First Amendment right to say plainly that President Obama is a liar with regard to our new health-care law, often referred to as Obamacare.

When a number of critics of Obamacare, including myself, warned that it would bring the rationing of treatments, medications and research into new procedures, the president said to the American Medical Association (June 15, 2009) that this rationing charge was a "fear tactic."

The next month, he said flat out: "I don't believe that government can or should run health care" (firstthings.com, May 31, 2010).

But in May of this year, the president nominated Dr. Donald Berwick, a professor at Harvard Medical School, to head Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) - the most powerful health-care position. As Hal Scherz underlines (RealClearPolitics.com, May 26): "CMS covers over 100 million Americans, has an annual $800 billion budget that is larger than the Defense Department's and is the second-largest insurance company in the world."

Unlike Obama, Berwick is enthusiastically, openly candid in his support of Britain's socialistic National Health Service. In a 2008 speech to British physicians, our new health czar said: "I am romantic about National Health Service. I love it (because it is) 'generous, hopeful, confident, joyous and just.'"

That "just" National Health Care Service decides which care can be too costly for the government to pay. Its real-time decider of life-or-death outcomes is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Here is how "nicely" it works, described by Michael Tanner, senior fellow and health-care expert at the Cato Institute (where I, too, am a senior fellow):

"It acts as a comparative-effectiveness tool for the National Health Care Service, comparing various treatments and determining whether the benefits the patients receives - SUCH AS PROLONGED LIFE - are cost-efficient for the government" (lifenews.com, May 27).

So listen to our very own decider of how the Obama administration will lower our national debt by cutting inefficient health-care costs. After declaring his ardent romantic attachment to the British system, Berwick said: "All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." He will, of course, be too busy to attend the funerals of the sacrificial Americans whose lives - not only those of the elderly - may thereby be cut short.

Tanner makes a grim point as Berwick rediscovers the romance of government cost-effectiveness: "Recent reports suggest that the recently passed health-care bill will be far more expensive than originally projected. As it becomes apparent that Obamacare is unsustainable, the calls for controlling its costs through rationing will grow louder. With Donald Berwick running the government's health-care efforts, those voices have a ready ear" (dailycaller.com, May 27).

By then, Berwick will be involved in the government-controlled health of more than 100 million Americans and - notes Michael Tanner - "Maybe those worries about death panels weren't so crazy after all."

Keep in mind that already, in May, "the Congressional Budget Office updated its cost projections (of Obamacare). It found that the new health legislation would cost $115 billion more than estimated when it was enacted ("ObamaCare's Ever-Rising Price Tag," Wall Street Journal, June 3).

How soon will the romantic rhythms of health rationing follow?

Wesley Smith, an invaluable investigative reporter on the dangers of government-controlled health care, describes the consequences if Obamacare is not repealed by the next Congress after the midterm elections:

"Once the centralized planning of medical delivery is complete - with cost-containment boards controlling the standards of care and the extent of coverage for both the private and public sectors - insurance companies, HMOs and the government will be able to legally discriminate against the sickest, most disabled and most elderly in our country. In other words, those whose care is most expensive."

For what to watch for during the reign of Berwick, whom Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius recently glorified as "absolutely the right leader for this time" (CNSNews.com, May 26), I bring back Michael Tanner:

In the British Health Service Berwick loves, "750,000 patients are awaiting admission to NHS hospitals. ...The latest estimates suggest that for most specialties, only 30 to 50 percent of patients are treated within 18 weeks. For trauma and orthopedic patients, the figure is only 20 percent. ... Every year 50,000 surgeries are canceled because patients become too sick on the waiting list to proceed."

And, again unlike the president, Berwick tells it like it frighteningly is in a June 2009 interview for the magazine, Biotechnology Healthcare:

"It's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

There are many reasons why it is vital for Americans to vote in the midterm elections - and, of course, in 2012, to prevent a second term for the most dangerous and incompetent president we have ever had - but for many Americans, it is particularly important this year to vote against supporters of Obamacare. The question for many voters should be whether, in the years ahead, they will be in condition to vote if they are on waiting lists for government-controlled health care.

More of us are learning that during the Obama administration, it is essential to continually keep our eyes open on all it does.

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. He is a member of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the libertarian Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow.

This piece appeared here.

A Simple Illustration Of Why Healthcare Is Not A Right

Because, quite simply, it's a contract. And if the provider doesn't agree to make a contract with you, no healthcare is provided. As in this case of yet another doctor who puts up a warning notice to his patients:

“If you voted for Obamacare, be aware these doors will close before it goes into effect.” The note is signed Joseph M. Scherzer M.D. and includes the following addendum: “****Unless Congress or the Courts repeal the BILL.”

People who insist that healthcare is a right would enslave another human being to make him or her provide it. If they really mean it then they ought to take intellectually promising children away from their mothers and fathers at an early age and raise and educate them to this end, just as Plato discussed long ago.

Funny how it's the Democrat Party which is so enthusiastic for a new form of slavery. Didn't they have something to do with it the last time? That went well.

The Daily Caller has the story and a picture here.

Doctors Own Their Minds, Labor, Years Of Study, And Their Skills, Not Obama

The following appeared here:

April 6, 2010

Dr. Galt Goes On Strike

By Investor's Business Daily

On Strike: A Florida doctor has told patients who voted for Barack Obama that they should seek care elsewhere. His is a noble one-man fight against the soft tyranny of the federal takeover of the health care sector.

The message taped to the entrance of Dr. Jack Cassell's practice is clear: "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your health care begin right now, not in four years."

Cassell is not refusing to treat patients, according to an Orlando Sentinel story. In his words, "that would be unethical." He's simply asking those who helped the Democratic leadership inflict its health care overhaul on the country to find another physician because the regime that's been created threatens his ability to do good.

"If they read the sign and turn the other way," he says, "so be it."

The Orlando-area urologist sees a "real problem" in ObamaCare, believes it "fatally compromises my ability or any doctor's ability to uphold the Hippocratic Oath" and "can't believe that more people aren't standing up."

He adds: "I think all the doctors in the United States need to take a stand on this, because pretty soon it's going to be too late."

In return for expressing his opposition to a government gone too far, Cassell has been labeled a racist by the man who represents him in Congress, Rep. Alan Grayson, the apparently daft Democrat who has said Republicans want sick Americans to "die quickly."

Grayson is filing a complaint against his constituent, a scare tactic that tells every doctor who might follow Cassell's lead that he or she will be met by government intimidation.

The point that Grayson and other critics of Cassell are missing - ignorantly or willingly - is that the doctor is peacefully protesting a government that will dictate how he practices medicine.

Cassell seems to understand that unless partisan ambition to turn all health care into a government program is stopped, Washington will eventually treat him and other doctors as vassals of the state.

They will no longer be the owners of their minds and their labor, their years of study and the development of their skills. All those instead will be owned by their masters on the Potomac.

Because Cassell is still taking patients, he's not gone fully Galt. But if he did, he wouldn't be alone: 45% of doctors in our IBD/TIPP poll (a result since duplicated by at least one other poll) said they'd consider leaving their practices if a federal health care takeover passed.

While even a brief doctors' strike might cause some immediate harm, the long-term benefits would be worth the pain if they brought the right kind of change.

I'll Bet You Didn't Know Kentucky Repealed ObamaCare in 2003

I didn't know either. It took about ten years.

The article appeared here:

www.nationalreview.com

STEPHEN SPRUIELL

APRIL 5, 2010

Bluegrass Bummer

Does Kentucky’s experience with health-insurance overregulation hold lessons for repealing Obamacare?

In the mid-1990s, Kentucky was one of eight state governments that boldly went where the rest of the country refused to go: The commonwealth imposed Clintoncare’s restrictions on its insurance companies, even though Clintoncare had been vanquished from the national stage. In Kentucky and the other seven states, insurance premiums skyrocketed, healthy people stopped buying insurance, and insurance companies exited the market in droves. Only three of the eight were able to untangle themselves from the harmful provisions; only one, Kentucky, was able to pull off a full repeal.

Trey Grayson was elected Kentucky secretary of state in 2003, the year before Gov. Ernie Fletcher was able to finalize the repeal — you’ll note it took ten years to accomplish. Grayson, who is currently running for the Republican nomination to replace Jim Bunning in the U.S. Senate, says that those pushing to repeal Obamacare can take a few lessons from the Kentucky experience. “On the one hand it gives you some hope, because in Kentucky we were able to gradually repeal the elements that were driving up the number of uninsured, that were increasing premiums at a rate higher than the national average, that were driving insurance companies out of the state,” Grayson says. “But unfortunately it took ten years, caused rates to be higher, hurt our economy and hurt our state government from a revenue standpoint. So a lot of damage was done.”

In 1994, Democratic governor Brereton Jones strong-armed a version of Clintoncare through the Democratic-controlled state legislature over the reservations of Republicans and some conservative Democrats. Much like Obamacare, Kentucky’s House Bill 250 forbade insurance companies to deny coverage or charge higher rates based on pre-existing conditions, thus negating the point of insurance — which, properly understood, involves paying premiums to hedge against risk. Under Kentucky’s laws, as under Obamacare, you could wait until you got sick to buy coverage and still obtain it at the same rates as everyone else. (Obamacare includes a requirement that healthy people have insurance, which its proponents say will prevent the premium hikes and insurance-company flight that Kentucky experienced. But the penalty for evading this requirement is relatively small; its constitutionality is suspect; and it might not even be enforceable.)

The problem with such regulations is that healthy people make the rational decision to drop their coverage and wait until they get sick to renew it. As healthy people stop paying into the risk pool, premiums for those who remain skyrocket. If insurance companies are forbidden from increasing premiums to keep up with costs, they leave town or close down. Unsurprisingly, average premiums in Kentucky increased between 36 and 165 percent in the wake of the reforms. Within four years, over 40 insurance companies had stopped offering individual insurance coverage. The two remaining providers, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield and a state-run plan called Kentucky Kare, teetered on the brink of insolvency (Kentucky Kare went under in 1999).

By the late 1990s, Grayson says, “If you said House Bill 250, it was a four-letter word.”

In 1998, the Kentucky legislature, still controlled by Democrats, started repairing the damage by passing a reform package that modified the insurance requirements but didn’t repeal them. In 1999, party switches gave Republicans control of the state senate, and the legislature repealed most of the harmful provisions. Finally, in 2003, Kentucky elected a Republican governor for the first time since 1967, and one of his first acts was to sign a moratorium on new insurance mandates. These reforms slowed the rise of premiums and started bringing insurance companies back to the state.

“What was interesting,” Grayson notes, “is that the repeals were done in a bipartisan manner. Democrats, many of whom voted for House Bill 250, saw the negative impact.” Rising premiums and fleeing insurance companies gave opponents of the bill a compelling story to tell. “When we had evidence, we used it,” Grayson says. “That was what convinced Kentucky voters.” The bill’s opponents armed themselves with facts, and the case against House Bill 250 grew too overwhelming to resist.

This is the first lesson proponents of repeal should take from Kentucky: Construct a narrative around all of the bill’s negative consequences. “So, for example, we’ve already had John Deere and Verizon and some other companies take charges for the next quarter,” Grayson says. “As we learn about businesses choosing to drop insurance or delay expansion plans or whatever they have to do to avoid this, I think we have to take those real-life consequences and tell the public.”

The second lesson, he says, “is that you don’t have to do a full repeal right off the bat. If you can start getting rid of some of the bad elements, try that.” Repealing the most unpopular parts of the bill — new taxes on investment, on income, on medical devices — can pave the way for repealing the spending provisions: “If those taxes have to be repealed or phased out,” Grayson says, “then you start to have a financial concern: How you are going to pay for all this stuff as the subsidies are phased in?”

Liberals are much more influential in Washington than in Kentucky’s statehouse in Frankfort: When the big problems with Obamacare start surfacing, they will push, not for repealing the bill, but for nationalizing even more of the health-care industry. They will call for a stronger penalty for not purchasing insurance or, if the Supreme Court invalidates that provision, they might push for a “public option” to offer a taxpayer-subsidized alternative to the private insurance companies they have broken. When the public option doesn’t work (and we know it won’t, thanks to another failed state experiment in Maine), liberals will argue that the only way to fix the broken system is to make the government the “single payer” for all medical costs.

Opponents of Obamacare must be prepared to make the opposite case, starting with this election cycle. The strongest lesson from Kentucky is that the longer Obamacare stays on the books, the more damage it will inflict on the economy. Conservative candidates such as Grayson can and should run on this issue. Health-care reform “is clearly on the minds of voters,” he says — it’s the second thing people want to talk to him about, after the University of Kentucky’s performance in the NCAA tournament — “and most folks I talk to are not real pleased. I think voters want us to do something about it — hopefully before the damage gets done.”

— Stephen Spruiell is an NRO staff reporter.

Equal Division of Unequal Earnings

The title summarizes one inspiration for this blog's existence, which dates to last September, and illustrates what is more and more becoming the open description from Democrats of their own, and Obama's, political philosophy: equal division of unequal earnings.

Many in the center and on the right have shrunk from calling Obama a communist out of fear of being labeled McCarthyites, despite the fact that with the fall of the Soviet Union it has become clear that the senator from Wisconsin underestimated the depth of pro-Soviet penetration of the U.S. government at the time. The task has been left to our court jesters instead.

Even our most unsympathetic critics on the right today shrink from calling Obama a communist because Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky, would not identify himself as such, even though that duck walked and quacked like one. We remind our contemporaries, however, that it was at Antioch that the followers of The Way were first called Christians. It was an outsider's estimation, and later an accusation, not a term of self-identification. So it is here.

It is not necessary to link communists to a no-longer extant political entity for them to be such now anymore than it was then, in the Victorian age. Communists already existed in the popular British imagination of the time because they existed in fact, long before the philosophy found political expression in a national government in Russia.

That Democrats today, like Max Baucus, Howard Dean, and Barack Obama readily and openly identify with communist ideas should make the blood boil in every American patriot's heart. These ideas mean death to our way of life, and death to us who hold to the immemorial rights of Englishmen in America. Not a dime's worth of difference between the two political parties? More than ten times the difference, and a world: "Idler or bungler or both he is willing to fork over his penny and pocket your shilling."

In "Obamacare Was Mainly Aimed At Redistributing Wealth," which appeared here, Byron York points out:

It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable. It wasn't just about bending the cost curve. It wasn't just about cutting the federal deficit. It was about redistributing wealth.

Health reform is "an income shift," Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said on March 25. "It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower income, middle income Americans." ...

At about the same time, Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate, said the health bill was needed to correct economic inequities. "The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top ... and those at the bottom?" Dean said during an appearance on CNBC. "When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution."

You'll want to read the rest, at the link.

Democrats "Attacking Most of the American People"

The following was found here:

April 1, 2010

Enemies of the state

Monica Crowley

During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Now that Democrats control the White House and Congress, the left treats dissent as the lowest form of treason. When the left agitates over government policies, it's considered righteous anger. When the right - and much of the center - agitate, it's painted as the rantings of the criminally and violently insane.

With Obamacare signed into law, Democrats have stopped congratulating themselves long enough to notice that the American people aren't cheering on the sidelines. According to a CNN poll released last week, 58 percent oppose President Obama's handling of Obamacare, while Gallup shows him this week with a 46 percent job approval, his lowest yet. A CBS poll released after the House of Representatives passed Obamacare showed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's favorable rating at 11 percent and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's at 8 percent, higher only than Beelzebub's.

Aware that their "reform" is rejected by most of the American people and that they will face serious consequences in November, the Democrats have decided that the best defense is a good offense: Attack those who oppose Obamacare. It doesn't seem to bother most Democrats that that pernicious strategy puts them in the weird and politically untenable position of attacking most of the American people.

Over the past week, a parade of Democrats have accused members of the Tea Party movement and other opponents of Obamacare of threatening them. There may be an infinitesimal number of looney tunes who have engaged in that kind of unacceptable behavior out of hundreds of millions of Americans. But the Democrats have dishonestly extrapolated from a few claimed incidents to taint all those who reject Obamacare as wild-eyed wackos.

If this sounds familiar, it's because the Democrats have shown a disturbing pattern of demonizing those who disagree with them. A year ago, Mr. Obama's Department of Homeland Security issued a report for law enforcement called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." It suggested that anyone who opposed abortion, illegal immigration and oppressive taxes, supported gun rights or served in Iraq and Afghanistan should be singled out for special attention. Why? Because such people might burst into a spasm of violence at any time. There was no mention of being on the lookout for potential violence committed by Islamic jihadists, even after actual acts of violence committed by an Islamic jihadist in Little Rock. (The Fort Hood shooting happened later.)

In other words, if you go to church, believe in protecting innocent life, own a gun or defend your country, the Democrats consider you a potential enemy of the state. It was no coincidence that the Homeland Security report was issued just as the Tea Party movement was gaining real national traction.

Not surprisingly, then, once they had passed their widely unpopular health care bill, the Democrats moved quickly to delegitimize opposition to it. Their defiant move in the face of overwhelming popular resistance gave them another excuse to equate big-government progressives with good patriots and small government advocates with potentially violent nutcases who must be watched.

As if on cue, this week, Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Justice's Joint Terrorism Task Force carried out raids against a purported "Christian militia group" in the Midwest. According to reports, nine people have been charged with plotting to kill police officers with "weapons of mass destruction." The indictment describes the group as an "anti-government extremist organization" and the FBI special agent in charge, Andrew Arena, cast it as "radical and fringe." That may be, but the description has a conveniently familiar ring to it.

Interestingly, the head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Dawud Walid, rushed to announce the raids at a CAIR banquet at about the same time the story became public. "We salute the FBI for breaking up a militia that was seeking to harm American Muslims," he said. It's curious that he would know that at a time when the FBI still had the investigation under seal. (We're still waiting to hear why Homeland Security and the FBI chose to use the descriptive word "Christian" when they seem unable to use the word "Muslim" in connection with Islamic extremism.)

It's mind-blowingly coincidental that these raids on a supposedly "Christian" militia group would come at the exact moment that Democrats were trying to change public opinion on Obamacare by claiming persecution by their opponents. They have cast Tea Partiers, conservatives, independents, Christians and militia members as all cut from the same unstable, volatile cloth. How can anyone take their opposition to the Democrats' agenda seriously when they're toting guns and being raided by Homeland Security and the FBI? They're all nuts, don't you know?

The Democrats handle dissent by isolating it, smearing it and delegitimizing it in order to crush it. The warning should be clear: If you have small-government, traditional values, you may be considered by your own leadership to be an enemy of the state.

Monica Crowley is a nationally syndicated radio host, a panelist on "The McLaughlin Group" and a Fox News contributor.

The Left's Anti-American Slander

When leftists and socialists compare Americans who believe in limited government to Nazis, they forget that many of them had fathers who left wives and children behind to join in the effort to defeat Hitler. To such Americans, the comparison is an outrage, and the left would do well not to underestimate the consequences of stoking this anger. The following appeared here:

March 31, 2010

The Hostility Follies

By Jonah Goldberg

Apparently there's a self-proclaimed militia leader named Mike Vanderboegh who runs an obscure, low-traffic blog out of Pinson, Ala. (population 5,007). Mr. Vanderboegh recently called on his fellow "sons of liberty" to break the windows of Democrats who voted for healthcare reform.

So let's start with the obvious: Vanderboegh is an idiot, and anyone who followed his advice is an idiot too. These people are buffoons, not just because such tactics help Democrats but because such behavior is simply wrong, reprehensible and clownish.

Equally wrong, reprehensible and clownish: The reaction to Vanderboegh and his alleged ilk.

The Daily Beast's John Avlon insists that Vanderboegh's rallying cry, combined with some threats and broken windows, make "the parallels, intentional or not, to the Nazis' heinous 1938 Kristallnacht . . . hard to ignore."

Actually, it's really, really easy to ignore the parallels. During Kristallnacht, Nazi goons destroyed not just 7,000 store windows but hundreds of synagogues and thousands of homes. Tens of thousands of Jews were hauled off to concentration camps by the Nazis, who had been in total power for half a decade.

This combination of state power and murderous, genocidal intent is nowhere on display in America today, not in the Obama administration (contrary to what some overheated right-wingers claim) and certainly not among out-of-power conservatives and "tea partyers." It's amazing anyone needs to point this out, but a few libertarians throwing bricks is not the same thing as the tightening fist of the Third Reich. Indeed, it's an anti-American slander to suggest anything like it is going on here, and it cheapens the moral horror of the Holocaust.

Don't tell that to the Democrats and their media transmission belt, who largely turned a blind eye to partisan vandalism and extremist rhetoric against Republicans for eight years but now express horror at what they claim to hear from the right.

Columnist Paul Krugman, who encouraged liberals to hang Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in effigy, is concerned about right-wing "eliminationist rhetoric." The Washington Post's Courtland Milloy can't stand the incivility of the tea partyers, which is why he wants to "knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads." Frank Rich says the mantra "take our country back" is now code for a white racist backlash -- though it was an apparently fine Democratic applause line when George W. Bush was president.

So what's the evidence for this new reign of terror? Those broken windows, some nasty voice and e-mail messages (not counting those aimed at Republicans, naturally), a coffin "left" at a Missouri congressman's home, a few repugnant signs at rallies and allegations from Reps. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.)and John Lewis (D-Ga.) that they were spit on and insulted with the "N-word," respectively.

But wait. The coffin was part of a protest over the death of "our freedoms" and was toted by the protesters, not left anywhere. And videos make it clear that what Cleaver called spitting was a protester spraying too much saliva while talking, the racist pig.

As for the epithet aimed at Lewis, if it happened, it's disgusting. But going by the video, there's nothing to back it up, and Rep. Andre Carson's (D-Ind.) claim that the N-word was chanted 15 times is pure dishonesty.

Let's assume it is true. I thought liberals rejected guilt by association as McCarthyism. Or are we to believe that every opponent of Obamacare is a racist?

On March 3, Politico broke a story about a leaked PowerPoint presentation delivered at a GOP retreat in Florida. It laid out, in cartoonish terms, a fundraising strategy exploiting "fear" of President Obama's "socialist" agenda. Ranking Republicans condemned and repudiated it.

Now, Obama's political arm, Organizing for America, is fundraising based on fear, sending out e-mails insinuating that Republicans are unleashing a lynch mob to repeal Obamacare. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democrats' Congressional Campaign Committee, insists we all should be very scared.

Heaven forbid anyone suggest a coordinated strategy is at work here. That would be distracting us from the Kristallnacht unfolding before our eyes.