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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Ahead Of The Curve
Ann Coulter, the Right's irreplaceable speaker of unspeakable truths, has been producing a compendium of "Liberal Lies About National Healthcare." Yesterday's entry in the series contains this gem:
(14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants.This appeared in an earlier installment of "Liberal Lies About Health Care," but I keep seeing Democrats like Howard Dean and Rep. Jan Schakowsky on TV angrily shouting that these are despicable lies -- which, in itself, constitutes proof that it's all true.
Then why did Democrats vote down amendments that would prohibit coverage for illegals and abortion? (Also, why is Planned Parenthood collecting petition signatures in Manhattan -- where they think they have no reason to be sneaky -- in support of national health care?)
On July 30 of this year, a House committee voted against a Republican amendment offered by Rep. Nathan Deal that would have required health care providers to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program to prevent illegal aliens from receiving government health care services. All Republicans and five Democrats voted for it, but 29 Democrats voted against it, killing the amendment.
On the same day, the committee voted 30-29 against an amendment offered by Republican Joe Pitts explicitly stating that government health care would not cover abortions. Zealous abortion supporter Henry Waxman -- a walking, breathing argument for abortion if ever there was one -- originally voted in favor of the Pitts amendment because that allowed him, in a sleazy parliamentary trick, to bring the amendment up for reconsideration later. Which he did -- as soon as he had enough Democrats in the hearing room to safely reject it.
If any liberal sincerely believes that national health care will not cover illegals and abortion, how do they explain the Democrats frantically opposing amendments that would make this explicit?
Talk about an inescapable conclusion! But where else would we have read this? In Congressional committee transcripts? Your Curmudgeon reads widely, but even he hasn't the fortitude for that. Apparently, the overwhelming majority of commentators in the Right haven't got it, either.
With the departure of Van Jones, Communist, racist, "truther," and enemy of the Constitution, from Obama's White House advisory group, many in the Right have pondered whether there are other juicy targets among the "czars" who could be brought down with their own words. It's possible. It should have been more of a priority when the names of such persons as John Holdren, Cass Sunstein, and the rest were introduced to the public eye. But better late than never...and far better late than never to ask our fellow Americans what sort of man would approve of having such persons in his administration.
Surely we had harbingers in Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Alex Giannoulias, and so on. Surely we had indications in the "bitter clingers" speech, the "get in their faces" exhortations, Michele Obama's "for the first time I'm proud of my country" statement, and so on. Surely the "O-Force One" and "Office of the President-elect" arrogations were signposts no one could miss. Surely it was all confirmed when Obama, during the first few days of his administration, peremptorily closed discussion over the proposed stimulus bill by saying "I won."
Surely we have reinforcement for our suspicions when Obama repeatedly castigates the previous administration for his own policy failures and roadblocks. George W. Bush, as viciously reviled as any president since Abraham Lincoln, never did such a thing. It's strictly a leftist's prerogative.
(Say, remember how whenever anything went wrong in the old Soviet Union, the Kremlin's mouthpieces would invariably blame it on "Yankee imperialism?" The North Korean and Cuban tyrants still do.)
No one is without fault. No one rises so high above the common run of Mankind that he can forever avoid mistakes. And no one who repeatedly distances himself from his associations, goes back on his own words, and blames others for his troubles should receive the smallest groat of trust.
Pundits and prognosticators all want to be "ahead of the curve." Every one of us -- yes, your Curmudgeon is a member of that fraternity, albeit a very minor one -- yearns to be able to "call the turn" in such a fashion as to advise our readers constructively and (of course) preen ourselves for our perspicacity and wisdom.
But Tanner's Paradox applies no less here than in the physical sciences:
"In any given field where there are N scientists at work, N-1 are wrong. Therefore, for practical purposes -- say, in administrators' terms -- all scientists are always wrong." -- Bob Leman, Conversational Mode.
For pundits, no less than scientists, strive to be unique in their understanding of a situation. If all the other members of the Commentariat are as correct as your supremely gifted Certified Galactic Intellect of a Curmudgeon, what boots it that he can split atoms with his mind and compel groveling obeisance from a DMV harridan with his glare? You could read any of them and be no worse off. So we tend to split hairs about the vistas before us, for the sake of sufficient variation to allow each of us to claim that his insight is "original."
But seriously, it seems that even among the hairiest of hairy-eyed bomb-throwers in the Right, there has prevailed an inexplicable reluctance to draw certain inescapable and vital conclusions:
- That the Democrats who currently control both houses of Congress, as avid as they are for more power, are cowards who won't proceed without "bipartisan support" -- that is, without political cover;
- That leftist politicians and flacksters excoriate dissent from their exhortations as "lies" and "fabrications" even though they know full well that's not the case;
- That the use of tactics designed to silence dissent by intimidation implies that the intimidators are afraid of the dissent, but not of the consequences of their actions;
- That a public official who says one thing -- repeatedly -- and does the exact opposite -- repeatedly -- is either abysmally stupid or evil;
- That Barack Hussein Obama, whatever else one might say about him, is not abysmally stupid.
However, some are braver and more forthright than others:
As McCarthy said yesterday, Obama is not a good man to whom bad things are happening. He is a bad man, doing bad things to our country, and doing them in the most underhanded and deceitful way imaginable. He isn’t a swell but naive guy who’s been hoodwinked by the bad people he’s surrounded himself with his entire life; he is one of them, through and through. Obama is Jones is Ayers is Dorn is Wright is Holdren is the whole psych-ward circus of cracked, left-wing-revolutionary clowns. He may present a pretty face, a pleasant smile, and a courtly manner when he wishes to, but underneath the mask he’s all authoritarian degeneracy and collectivist rot. Based on what we’ve seen and heard from him, there is simply no other conclusion to be reached; anything else is just wishful thinking and/or misguided courtesy.
Which is why your Curmudgeon considers Mike Hendrix one of the DextroSphere's principal ornaments.
Mike and Andrew McCarthy are absolutely correct. The nation has put a bad man, a man with evil intentions, into the highest executive office in the nation. He has lied repeatedly; he has surrounded himself with other, demonstrably bad men; and he has embarked open-eyed on a course that has already brought bad consequences and will bring still more. If allowed to proceed unencumbered, he will do great harm to Americans' rights, to the nation's prosperity and military strength, and to our ability to influence international developments in a wholesome fashion.
Barack Hussein Obama must be neutralized.
If possible, it should be done electorally. Unfortunately, the next general election is more than a year away, a year in which the Administration and its Congressional allies could wreak irreparable harm. Between now and then, we must make use of every opportunity to marshal popular sentiment and pressure against the Democrats' initiatives, sufficient to cow any sitting legislator into fear of having to make an honest living in the private sector. Patriotic Americans must storm the gates of both major parties. Once inside, we must insist upon ethical, well-vetted nominees, and a policy of strict adherence to Constitutional constraints in party platforms, campaign promises, and legislative performance. The Obamunists cannot be allowed to assume even for an instant that the American people are willing to go along with their agenda.
Equally important, we cannot allow the Republicans to play the "if you disdain us, you'll get them" game. Every incumbent Republican must be made continuously, painfully aware that he's being watched. Any incumbent Republican who shows the slightest willingness to collaborate with the Obamunization program must be ejected from office, hopefully at the primary stage. No slippage from Constitutional fidelity should be tolerated.
If we don't get ahead of this curve, we'll soon find it wrapped around our throats.
Comments
That the Democrats who currently control both houses of Congress, as avid as they are for more power, are cowards who won’t proceed without “bipartisan support”—that is, without political cover
Some on the left want more power for the state in general. Those who are also elected officials, on the other hand, generally only want more power for the parts of the state they see themselves (and their cohort, but mostly themselves personally) as controlling. Which is why they’re cowards.
In addition to not being stupid, Barack Obama is also not, at least in this sense, a coward. He seems eminently willing to take action which will ruin not only the country (about which we knew in advance he wouldn’t particularly care) but his own power and career. Politically he’d be far better off pulling back from wildly unpopular measures like healthcare nationalization in order to preserve the Democrats’ control of Congress after the next election. But he isn’t doing that.
He’s still just as wrong, but he’s definitely less of a coward than the overwhelming majority of members of Congress (and by that I mean both houses AND both parties).
Posted by Matt on 09/11/2009 at 12:18 PMFolks, our politicians are not the problem. They are only a symptom of the problem.
The problem is that too many Americans have replaced “Free-dom” with “Free-stuff”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/12/2009 at 01:54 AMAmerica, I ask this over and over again: how could you have elected someone so UN-American?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/29/2010 at 04:43 PM
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