Monday, March 22, 2010

Nationalsocialized "Health Care"

Well, the House voted and it (barely) passed. Now we're stuck with it -- and with all the rotten deals that went into getting the votes in both chambers. (Is it any wonder the Feds are going broke? --H. L. Mencken suggested a long lifetime ago that Congresscritters bribed the public with stolen goods; now they bribe one another with them). Raise taxes during a depressio, oh, sorry, Senator, recession.

Tamara's concerned about economic collapse and civil unrest. Me, I'm just as worried about dull acquiescence.

Our Senate is notably corrupt; the Executive rules by decree. Crowds protest and are ignored or slandered. We are living in one of those times of which historians, safe within their carrels, will write with glee. They're no fun at all to live through.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stuck with it?

That's no way to talk.

I have not yet begun to vote.

Shootin' Buddy

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

What SB said.

Roberta X said...

Welllll.... Of you, personally, I have no doubt. Your Party has thus far failed to repeal Social Security, Medicare, Federal Welfare or the Medicare prescription drug plan. Hey, which side committed that last offense cited...?

If the GOP grows a spine, I will cheer them on. But I won;t bet on it.

Don said...

I'm with you on this one, Roberta. I think most of the sheeple will simply go back to sleep.

In the meantime, the GOP is (half-heartedly) tilting at windmills, while the rest of us are largely ignored by everyone in gubmint.

Someone has already thrown a brick through Slaughter's home district office. I anticipate an slight uptick in the glass industry over the next few months.

Firing Pin J said...

I rather agree with tam on this one though there will be a large portion of sheep who go back to graze in front of American Idol. I believe an economic collapse is in the wind.

I do agree with you about the Senate!

Dave_H said...

Tam's estimate of the future is an accurate one. It isn't going to be fun. I suspect the only way we might end up with a decent government is after all this crap spectacularly blows up in our face.

Unknown.Rodent said...

Sadly I agree with Tam.....

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. --

First attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler in "This is the Hard Core of Freedom" by Elmer T. Peterson

Stranger said...

I expect the next election will see the Dims reduced to second class citizenship. A status they will retain for at least as long as the Republicans did after the Crash of '29.

Remember, the ObamaCare idiocy is just ONE small part of the overall picture. The economy is a much larger part of that picture, and the Dimocrats will face the court of public opinion every other year for at least a long lifetime.

A court that has been notably unforgiving throughout American history. And a court that will be even less forgiving when the men in the family take to the polls themselves, instead of letting their wives vote.

Since some will not understand that comment, take a really close look at the 2008 election demographics. Where overall numbers were down and men were notable by their relative absence.

Stranger

Anonymous said...

"Your Party has thus far failed to repeal Social Security, Medicare, Federal Welfare or the Medicare prescription drug plan. Hey, which side committed that last offense cited...?"

1. FICA/New Deal expansion was stopped thanks to the election of Republicans in 1946.

2. The GOP attempted to privatize Social Security during Bush II.

3. It was a Republican Congress which ended federal welfare and forced a Dem President to sign it.

4. The voluntary Medicare Drug Plan is one of the few federal programs that comes in under cost and is efficient.

5. It was the Republicans that did openly discuss and now (Mike Pence, Paul Ryan "repeal and replace") continue to discuss Health Savings Accounts as a mechanism to replace all of socialized medicine.

My party has alternatives that can be implemented upon their election. Give the GOP what the Dems have (both Houses of Congress the President and a compliant media) and many good things shall happen.

Republicans redefine; Wookies whine.

Shootin' Buddy

Anonymous said...

"If the GOP grows a spine, I will cheer them on. But I won;t bet on it."

Every single Republican, every one of them, voted against Obamacare on Sunday night.

What else are they to do? Brandish their bowcasters and shoot up the House floor like it is a control room on the Death Star?

Shootin' Buddy

Rabbit said...

I'd love to agree with Tam's assessment. Yours is probably closer to actuality.

Me, I'd love to see how Congresscritters respond to the vox populi with a case of electoral hemmorhoids and fortsumteritis. I'm weird like that, though. I bet that if I invested in tar sands and feather futures it might give a better return than my 401k has of late, and I'm more entertained by the RCOB than Clompin' with the Stars.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Turk Turon said...

Oh, this is a mess! An absolute, unmitigated, pluperfect mess.

SB has a point: this is the first time in Congressional history that a House vote on a big, expensive, controversial bill did not get a single GOP vote. Not even one. That's unprecedented. It was a very polarized House.

Tam said...

"Give the GOP what the Dems have (both Houses of Congress the President..."

They had all that, and yet here we are.

Sell that crap to someone who's buying; I won't get fooled again.

jed said...

Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss? Yeah, sounds about right.

It's because of the dull acquiescence that we'll get economic collapse. The nature and extend of civil unrest? Hard to predict, but there'll be some.

Actually, I don't know whether economic collapse is avoidable. The feds can't keep issuing debt forever. This new burden on the economy will slow things down, thus reducing tax revenues. The feddies will attempt to fix that by raising taxes. Positive feedback loop?

I do expect large gains by the GOP in the coming elections. Enough to override a veto? I doubt it. But will the lily-livered Obama actually use the veto? Who knows. I figure this juggernaut of a train wreck has until the end of 2012 to gain momentum.

Besides which, I'm with Tam. If the GOP had the stuff to truly deal with the issues we face, they'd have done so already, when they've had multiple chances. And SB, that list is small potatoes compared to what needs doing.

Borepatch said...

Well, I lived through the '60s, and parts of it were fun. The secret is to co-opt the fun bits in service of the New Revolution.

Fortunately, it looks like we have all the hot chicks on our side. That's what made the difference then.

And I'm only sort of being flippant. Make it fun, and you get past the apathy. Make it fun, and you get past the Stupid^H^H^H^H^H^H Republican Party stuffed shirts.

I was pretty pessimistic, too. I'm less so today, and will likely be even less so tomorrow. Alinksy Rules work both ways. In 50 years, I've never seen this level of contempt for the gubmint.

Mockery. Make 'em a laughing stock. It won't be hard, and you'll attract The People. I've seen it.

Roberta X said...

SB: Medicare Part D: another layer of unmitigated disaster. Made a huge mess of my Mom's prescription coverage and shook her loose from lifelong Republicanism. Still wanna tout that as a success?

In my lifetime, most Republican politicians have had all the spine of rats: when cornered, they will fight -- and look for a chance to slink away. The current dissing of TEA Partiers by the Party apparatchiks is a good example of their true mettle.

My first voting choice is the outsider: non-incumbent, third-party nutjobs. We've tried the good grey men who go along to get along and you know what? They blew it.

Drang said...

There may well be enough Republicans out there with a clear vision of what is wrong, and what needs to be done, to save things.

I fear we do not have time to form a viable third party. Our best hope may be to identify the "right thinking" Republicans, and help them to frame their platform(s) in terms libertarians and "moderate" liberals, as well as wookie-suiters, etc., can support.

It'll take a big tent, but it's a big country, and "big tents" could be considered to be what Federalism is all about...

WV: sperson. Don't be castin' no 'spers'ons, now...

rickn8or said...

My prediction is that the R's come back into power just in time to catch all the blame when the SHTF.

And accept the blame.

Jim said...

May a certified wookie-suiter say a word for the shootin' buddy stance?

If we accept that Sunday marked the beginning of an actual emergency, then the GOP is the short-term solution of choice, much as I hate the fact. No matter how laden it is with ambitious and cynical crooks, it is the only body with an electoral chance in Hell.

Vote 'em in. We'll figure out how to deal with the snake handers later.

(Personally, I would like to hear less talk of chambering a round. It isn't time for that yet.)

Roberta X said...

Jim, a long time ago, I compared the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans to the difference between being hanged and being slowly poisoned. The outcome is the same in either case.

You can see it in SB's own comments, wherein he argues that his party's transfer payments are much more efficiently-run and beneficial than the other party's. This is the very same script the GOP used during the New Deal: they were all in favor of social-security and Federal employment programs, they just would run them better than Mr. Roosevelt's party. Voters reasoned they might as well vote for the real Democrats and it was a long, cold winter for the Republicans.

When the elephant's children start promising to roll this back, to repeal Nancy Pelosi's mess, I'll listen. If they tell me, "We're all in favor of health care reform but the other party's way is wasteful," I'll hang up on 'em.

Roberta X said...

PS: The GOP is fond of invoking Mr. Reagan. He was a nice guy but they had better be holding seances looking for advice from Calvin Coolidge and Robert Taft.

Anonymous said...

"They had all that, and yet here we are."

Really? When? When in the name of Jumping Jim Jeffords did the GOP have all that (60 in the Senate, House, Presidency, compliant media) ever???

"If the GOP had the stuff to truly deal with the issues we face, they'd have done so already, when they've had multiple chances."

Again, when was this? Wookie whining aside (Daddy isn't fixing the car fast enough), when did the GOP have 60 votes in the Senate, the House and the Presidency? Maybe 2012?

"Made a huge mess of my Mom's prescription coverage"

Sounds like perfect candidate for an HSA so your mom could buy what she requires. She won't get an HSA from the Democrats.

Shootin' Buddy

Tam said...

"Wookie whining aside (Daddy isn't fixing the car fast enough)"

All stupid "wookie" comments aside, the problem that you obstinately refuse to acknowledge is that every time "Daddy" gets his hands on the tools, he sets about actively breaking the car.

Jim said...

Roberta: Excellent points all, and if I could see the slightest hope of electing significant numbers of people who believe as you and I do, I would cast the party of Nelson Rockefeller into the innermost circle of Hell.

But I can't. The little hope I do see is capitalizing on the notion that being slowly poisoned opens a greater window of opportunity for an electable Dr. Ron Paul to ride to the rescue. (The trouble with that image is its reliance on a Leader, but you know what I mean.)

Reagan is the wrong man to cite for GOP power and purity. As useful as he was, he owed much to the fans of Jimmy Swaggert. Goldwater is the name to be looked to.

Anonymous said...

"the problem that you obstinately refuse to acknowledge is that every time 'Daddy' gets his hands on the tools, he sets about actively breaking the car."

This is simply not correct.

It was a Republican Congress that stopped the post-War expansion of the New Deal in 1946.

It was a Republican Congress that stopped Communist infiltration into the U.S. Government.

It was a Republican Congress that gave us tax cuts.

If we are upset about Daddy in Nixon, Bush I, and Bush II, then the remedy is to pay attention in the primaries and not allow the media to select Republican candidates.

Shootin' Buddy

Justthisguy said...

As a real Democrat (there may be as many as 3 or 4 of us left) i.e., someone who is for small government, small farms, small business, and small arms, I feel so all alone lately.

I have registered as a libertarian, as the Republicans where I live have proven they are no friends of liberty. In elections, I generally vote R when I don't leave the checkbox blank. I know how the Electoral College works, so held nose and voted for W twice, and Sarah and that old guy.

Where is Grover Cleveland now that we really need him?