Posted on 03/23/2010 9:12:58 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Who has been minding the store? I step out of the country for a few days to go sailing and, Pow, ObamaCare™ and all that it entails slouches towards Washington to be born.
As I’ve often noted in this space, what travels under the rubric of “health care reform” is only incidentally about health care and hardly at all about reform, i.e. improving things. Really, it is about increasing the government’s control over your life, partly by handing over the machinery of health care to its phalanx of bureaucrats, partly by the familiar mechanics of choice — limitation that such “reform” involves: more regulation, more bureaucracy, and last but most assuredly not least higher taxes. As Ronald Reagan noted more than a quarter century ago, “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.” Sunday was a sad day for individual liberty and a sad day for America.
But I did not return from the Caribbean to bellyache. As the philosopher Yogi Berra observed, it ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t over yet. No one should underestimate the gravity of Sunday’s vote. By a narrow margin, the Democrats have pushed the United States that much closer to the slough of socialist dependency and fiscal suicide. But the victory may yet be a pyrrhic one. All across the land people are awakening from their dogmatic slumbers. Tea partiers from Washington, D.C., to California are brandishing the insignia of freedom. Never in my lifetime has there been such a strong field of conservative political candidates. A week, as Harold Wilson once observed, is a long time in politics. But it looks now as if the November 2010 will mark an historic victory for the partisans of freedom and prosperity. What can be enacted can also be repealed, as the fate of the ill-judged 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act reminds us. One scant year after it passed, it was repealed. That antistrophe might provide a useful model for those wishing to respond to this latest assault on freedom.
It is also worth keeping the larger perspective in view. I found the “debate” over health care “reform” a sickening spectacle: Can Nancy Pelosi find the right bribes to win over a few more wavering congressmen? Here we were talking about a sixth of the United States economy and Washington was riveted on smarmy gamesmanship, back-room deals, empty Executive Orders of dubious Constitutionality. These are the people we have chosen to represent us? Disgusting. (I remind readers once more about ThrowTheBumsOut.org.)
Seen rightly, every challenge is an opportunity. And this defeat is no exception. It is time now to persevere with the work of recovery. It is time, too, to step back and remind ourselves of some basic principles — to remind ourselves that what we are fighting for is not just the 216 votes for this or that bill but something much larger. Like what? A friend just sent me this reflection, titled “Thoughts on the Moral Case,” from the Margaret Thatcher Papers in Cambridge.
Our views on the way a government should run the economy can be described as “libertarian”: that is to say freedom to develop trade and industry within the framework of a strong and clear law. The most important part of the case for this economic freedom is not the way it produces greater prosperity but its consistency with certain fundamental moral principles of life itself. Each soul or person matters; man is imperfect; he is a responsible being; he has freedom to choose; he has obligations to his fellow man.
Morality is personal. There is no such thing as a collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom. To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may be easy and make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility. We don’t carry out our moral commitment by taking up a public stance on these things, but only by choosing to do something about them ourselves. You can’t delegate personal morality to your country. You are your country.
Inspiring, what? Here’s an exercise: try to imagine what you might find in the yet-to-be assembled Nancy Pelsoi Papers at the University of California at Berkeley. Not pretty, is it?
When liberals insist there is a moral obligation to socialist programs, they institute Theocratic Marxism. And the Left DID use "Jesus" as the excuse to encourage people to support this legislation.
I cannot be forced to tithe to the church of liberalism, their brand of "Christianity". It is apostasy to my faith.
The 10 Commandments speaks out against Theft and Coveting Thy Neighbor's Property.
The title caught my eye - I’d take Thatcher (even in her frail condition) in the 2nd round on a TKO - one hit to Pelosi and that skin will snap back like a balloon stretched over a bowling ball.
There’s no contest. Thatcher outdoes that skank, Pelosi.
Pelosi is a non-entity; a complete joke.
Mrs. Thatcher is to be revered and respected for all time.
Are you talking about the Catholic bishops? Or some other "cover-thy-brother" misquotation?
Mrs. Pelosi IS a handbag.
Obama and his handlers, Church and State to requiring tithing to the Church of Obama Christ. And the Communists in the ACLU are dead silent like good Commies are.
I can’t find my post I put into several threads (with links and quotes from several articles).
Here is Kookcinich making the “Christian” argument from his roll as Congressman. It is Church and State and no getting around it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2346672/posts
Did you just hear Kucinich? {IDIOT}
Posted on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 3:39:57 PM
Speaking about the need for health care on Fox Business, he quoted Jesus. He reminded us that Jesus said, ... “when I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was sick, did you care for me?”
Liberal Bernard Whitman Asks Conservatives “What Would Jesus Do?” About Health Care - Video
Freedom’s Lighthouse ^ | September 08, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2334831/posts
Here is a statement from the Obamantichrist himself making the religious “Christian” argument for spending our tax dollars:
Obama and Faith
Townhall.com ^ | August 26, 2009 | Jonah Goldberg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2324687/posts
The fight over health care took the most interesting turn last week. President Obama briefly switched from wonkish frippery about bending cost curves to speaking of faith. Reaching out to progressive faith leaders in two massive conference calls, Obama insisted that God was on his side. Expanding health care fulfills a “core moral and ethical obligation that we look out for one another ... that I am my brother’s keeper, my sister’s keeper.”
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Mr. Obama reportedly said in a conference call with Rabbi Jack Moline and other clerics. The conference was part of an effort to enlist left leaning clergy in the failing battle for Obamacare. While many aspects of Obamacare have unnerved an anxious public, recently conservatives have criticized the health care plan for permitting tax-payer funded abortions. It is charged such a policy contradicts Mr. Obama’s pledge to find common ground in the abortion debate. Recognizing the charge could further impede passage of Obamacare, the president claimed the allegation was a “fabrication” and it was “untrue” his health care bill provided for “government funding of abortions.” “You’ve heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true,” Mr. Obama reportedly said during the conference call.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2321120/posts
What Would Jesus Do? Ask Obama
Townhall. com ^ | August 21, 2009 | David Harsanyi
Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 6:45:27 AM by Kaslin
“For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see the public option.”
Yes, it’s finally come to this. We’ve dragged the Almighty Lord into the debate. It’s Yahweh or the highway.
This week, President Barack Obama claimed his version of health care reform is “a core ethical and moral obligation,” beseeching religious leaders to promote his government-run scheme. Questioning the patriotism of opponents, apparently, wasn’t gaining the type of traction advocates of “reform” had hoped.
“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” Obama said, invoking the frightening specter of the Ten Commandments.
Barack Hussein Obama believes none of this BS he is spouting (including the line about bearing false witness, he lies CONSTANTLY). It’s all shuck and jive to appease those who “cling to religion” and abhor socialism.
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