My conservative friends — and even a few media liberals — are agreed: The bloom is off the Obama rose. He’s not the Obamessiah, just another 50-percent president. He tried to do too much too fast, and his numbers are sinking. The Europeanization of health care is dead. Fuhgeddabouddit.
I wouldn’t be so sure. President Obama has no choice but to move fast, in part because the image he presented during the campaign — a post-partisan, post-racial, post-anything-unpleasant-and-controversial, pragmatic centrist — was a total crock. He has a vast transformative domestic agenda and — because most of its elements are not terribly popular — he has to accomplish it at speed, or he won’t get it done at all.
Health-care “reform”? As we’ve seen this past week in the House of Representatives, put not your trust in “Blue Dog Democrats.” And, as we’ll no doubt see in the weeks ahead in the Senate, put not your trust in “moderate Republicans” whose urge to “reach across the aisle” is so reflexive it ought to be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don’t matter. Once it’s in place, health-care “reform” can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you’ll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form.
If this seems a perverse obsession for a nation with a weak economy, rising unemployment, and a war on two fronts, it has a very sound strategic logic behind it. As I wrote in National Reviewa week or two back, health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That’s its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular.
Read the whole thing.
5 comments:
This has concerned me since last November. If Obama wants to bring to this country he has to do it fast before too many people figure out what is going on. I'm surprised we haven't heard more about that civilian defense corps plan of his at this point.
(Btw, I do not approve of public funding for elective abortion or elective anything else. Heck, in a free society I don't believe in forcing people to pay for other people's health care, period. And I suspect the power Obama seeks is not to make abortion available but to make it mandatory. Selectively mandatory. Like in China.)
RRA, re: civilian defense corp . . .
National Guard ad, Internment/Resettlement Specialist
Anonymous,
I posted that ad yesterday.
Question, the ad is put up by the National Guard, so how is it Civilian. Is it a Civilian post with the National Guard?
From my e-box:
While discussing the upcoming Universal Health Care Program with my sister-in-law the other day,I
think we have found the solution. I am sure you have heard the ideas that if you're a senior you need to suck it up and give up the idea that you need any health care.
A new hip?
Unheard of!
We simply can't afford to take
care of you anymore. You don't need any medications for your high
blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. Let's take care of the young people. After all,
they will be ruling the world very soon.
So here is the solution:
When you turn 70, you get a gun and 4 bullets.
You are allowed to shoot 2 senators and 2 representatives. Of course, you will be sent to prison where you will get 3 meals a day, a roof over your head and
all the health care you need! New teeth, absolutely! Need glasses,
no problem. New
> > hip, knee, kidney, heart? Well bring it on. And who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just told you that you are too old for health care. And, there's a huge bonus! Since you are a prisoner,you don't have to pay any income tax.
Considering the rate that things are moving, i will have been born free and died at the hands of a socialist government. The uk is placing cameras in people's homes to monitor the behavior of the parents and to see to it they are doing their job right. This is our future. I do not see any serious, revolution type serious, action in this country, to stop the process from taking place. By listening to obama explain how he intends on working us towards total government controlled healthcare systematically, we would be ignorant to not see him using that tactic to impliment other "systems" he feels are necessary. He has already gotten away with taking over the auto industry. What good were the sternly written letters, demanding phone calls & tea parties in stopping that? Do we believe they will have more success stopping the socialized healthcare? How about the soon to follow punishment for those who do not follow the government required "healthy lifestyle"? Afterall, they'L be footing the bill for our healthcare
Post a Comment