It is truly amazing to me how some in the administration, Congress, the main-stream media, and Hollywood can label these folks as “astro-turf,” “racists,” “domestic terrorists,” “right-wing extremists,” “birthers,” “truthers,” “right-wing nuts,” “ignorant rednecks,” etc., etc., etc.
These are fellow Americans concerned about the critical issues of our times and in opposition to those who are now controlling all facets of our government. People who think they know what’s best and only they have the right solutions for our problems scare me. Our country is broke and we are going more and more into debt, which will be the responsibility of our children to deal with. More entitlement programs, more government controlled facets of our economy, and continued spending has awakened grass roots America to the fact that our way of life is in great danger. These folks see gigantic stimulus programs continuing but they also see the jobless rate continuing to rise. They keep hearing great sounding rhetoric but seeing few results of that rhetoric. They see lies and disingenuousness from their elected leaders. And they see the continuing erosion of basic individual rights provided by the U.S. Constitution. They want answers and solutions to solve the country’s problems. They do not want the government running their lives, and they definitely do not want to see our nation continue on the path to socialism!
These observations of Milton Friedman are so right on! And the arguments of Donahue are so typically bleeding-heart-liberal elitist.
It is mind-boggling to me that any Americans, and more importantly, Americans in position of authority and influence, can possibly look to the failed and failing philosophies of communism and socialism for answers to the pressing governmental and economic and social problems we are facing today in America. To say or even imply that greed is the basis of capitalism while “social justice” is the answer and it is found only in socialism is preposterous. Every form of government the world has ever known, and every economic philosophy that has ever been put into practice has had self-interest as its central driving force. Public servants are really not servants of the public, but servants of their own self-interests and the interests of the constituencies that put them in their places of power. The problem in America is not the greed of capitalism, it is the elitists need to consolidate ever-increasing power in fewer and fewer hands, all supposedly for the good of everyone.
The need for health-care reform, stronger regulation of the financial industry, and reform in education in America have provided building blocks for the revolutionaries who now have control of our government and intend to transform this country into a socialist state. American society has evolved to the place where many are indifferent toward government and far too many have become dependent upon government. Everyone wants what they see themselves as entitled to, i.e. governmental largess.
If it is the government’s responsibility to control education, provide health-care, regulate commerce to the point of stifling free enterprise, and redistribute wealth so that everyone “gets their fair share,” then we are no longer the republic our founding fathers established because we have basically thrown the U.S. Constitution out the window. It should be very disturbing to Americans who love this country and the principles upon which it was founded to see so many in positions of power today who look to the villains of history like Mao, Fidel, and Che for their guiding principles. America is ripe for take-over by these revolutionaries. It’s up to the counter-revolutionaries, the Patriots, to stand up and take back our country before it is too late.
“Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people. The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. [Wednesday] the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. … To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. Dead wrong. … I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time. In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.” –Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu
SLOWLY GIVING UP AMERICA TO A COMING WORLD GOVERNMENT?
“Interesting that many of us thought the election of Barack Obama might signal the end of American Independence as we surrendered sovereignty to the United Nations. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that Obama has decided to give up American power to a group that doesn’t even officially exist: The Group of 20, which is shorthanded to the G-20. In an example of governmental inflation at its most dangerous, the G-20 was originally the G-6, then Canada was allowed to sit at the grownups table and it became the G-7. When the Soviet Union returned to being good old Russia, they were invited in and it became the G-8. The G-20 is supposed to be a meeting of the finance ministers and central bankers of the 20 largest economies. But these G-X meetings have now become summits. The meeting in Pittsburgh last week, included a significant number of the heads of states who had been in New York a few days earlier for the opening of the UN and who decided to make the trek along the Pennsylvania Turnpike to spend a day or two in the Steel City. … Obama knows he can never cede sovereignty to the UN, but he may be able to get away with the G-20 as the international Board of Directors dealing with everything from banking regs to global warming to human rights to labor law to … whatever. Obama knows America — even Air America — would never sit still for letting the United Nations make decisions for us. … However, sharing sovereignty with the 20 largest economies on the planet is a potentially saleable deal as long as Obama doesn’t say ‘We are sharing sovereignty with the 20 largest economies on the planet.’ You say things like, ‘We are establishing new rules for international banking which will avoid the problems of last September.’ One of those new rules will be an international reserve currency which does not have ‘UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ printed anywhere on it. … And we’ve been wasting our time worrying about Obama’s relationship with ACORN.” –political analyst Rich Galen
CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT CREEP TOWARD SOCIALISM
“Most of our country’s serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn’t mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn’t mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federal government: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so. Social Security, Medicare and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we’ve been though look like child’s play. Not withstanding all of the demagoguery, it is capitalism not socialism that made us a great country and it’s socialism that will be our undoing.” –economist Walter Williams
“The latest of many examples of government arrogance has come in New Hampshire, of all places, where the state motto is ‘Live Free or Die.’ A state judge has ordered a girl who was being educated at home by her mother to begin attending a public school because of the ‘rigidity’ of her mother’s religious views. The judge, Lucinda V. Sadler, said that the 10-year-old girl needed to consider other worldviews as she matures. … There are a number of issues in this case, not the least of which is the court’s attempt to define what represents an ‘extreme’ religious view and what is more ‘mainstream.’ A growing number of parents, including some in my family, home-school their children. My personal experience is that these kids get a better education, are better adjusted and easily gain entry into college because of their superior grades and seriousness of purpose, not to mention their character. Another issue is the apparent one-way street constructed by Judge Sadler. If a Christian girl ought to go to public school to learn about other views (this presumes she does not know about them through study at home, reading a newspaper or turning on the television), why shouldn’t the judge order a public school student to get a Christian-Jewish-Islamic-based education so that such a student might become acquainted with the Bible-Talmud-Koran? … Amanda’s mother retained the Alliance Defense Fund, the conservative legal alliance that works to defend religious liberty, but meanwhile, the girl has been forced by the court to sit in a fifth-grade classroom, which is a violation of her and her mother’s consciences and the First Amendment. … I’m on the side of the people. The New Hampshire judge and the Obama administration are on the side of the elites. And that’s why so many are justifiably angry.” –columnist Cal Thomas
“One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation’s medical care before the August recess — for a program that would not take effect until 2013! Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years — more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election? If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election? If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don’t we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to ‘hurry up and wait’ on something that is literally a matter of life and death? If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it. Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be. Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.” –economist Thomas Sowell
“President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress. … At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That’s nine times Congress’ prediction. Today’s Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress? Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: ‘Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services.’ Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.” –economist Walter E. Williams
In a recent newspaper letter-to-the-editor the writer was looking for someone who could “present constructive ideas in a civil tone.” It seems rather odd that this request should come in a letter filled with anything but a civil tone. How can civil discourse take place when the parties on both sides of the issues at hand resort to name-calling and derision and personal attacks rather than arguing their points in an irenic manner? How is calling the other side “narrow-minded,” “mean-spirited,” “mindless,” “scaremongers,” “paranoid,” “incessant whiners,” and “hate-filled,” going to promote an honest discussion of the pros and cons of the vital issues facing our nation today? There is also a degree of hypocrisy present in today’s political parties, both Democrat and Republican. The party in power at the time seems to know what’s best for all the people and those who disagree with them are labeled either left or right wing extremists.
A case in point is the current debate over Health-care Reform. In the rush to push this administration’s proposals through Congress quickly, supporters of the effort to include a “public option,” are readily willing to overlook the fact the 86% of the people are perfectly happy with the health care they have now. The more the public learns about the currently proposed House bill, the less they like it. And some of our senators, like Spector of Pennsylvania are trying to defend health care proposals that haven’t even found their way into a Senate Bill yet.
Some of us out here would just like to hear some alternatives to the “party line.” All Americans want lower health care costs. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that most Americans do not want a government-run system. How about considering some other options: like allowing insurers to compete across state lines; like requiring doctors to post their rates and results to allow consumers to shop around; like creating one standardized reimbursement form for all insurers; like allowing employees to choose among several insurance policies (like federal workers and Congress)
Let’s have some discourse in a “civil tone” about things like this instead of trying to shout one another down with angry name-calling from both sides.
You would think that a US Congressman would refrain from resorting to ad hominem attacks rather than discussing alternative solutions. But in his recent town hall meeting the honorable Barney Frank uses expressions like, “On what planet have you been spending most of your time recently?” and “…should crawl out from under the rock where they have been living.” As he also goes on to say, “rational minds will prevail,” but only when both sides of the issues are addressed, rather than moving straight ahead, like a horse with blinders, only seeing from one perspective.
The healthcare issue is just one among many that is critical to this country right now. The country is broke! We are in debt further than we have ever been before! Our kids and grandkids are being saddled with debt, and the country is being transformed right before us as our rights under the Constitution and its Bill of Rights are being eroded bit by bit. I was fortunate enough to be born in a country that was formed predicated upon the idea of “the consent of the governed.” I served in the military to defend the freedoms that America has always had and represented to the world. I don’t want socialism, communism, fascism or any “ism” other than Americanism!
Yes, let’s regulate the insurance industry. Yes, let’s make sure those who cannot afford health insurance are subsidized in some way. Yes, let’s make sure folks with pre-existing conditions have access to affordable insurance. Yes, let’s have some tort reform so doctors don’t have to pay $100,000 a year malpractice insurance premiums.
But, NO, NO, NO to moving America further into socialism by the government taking over health care, and the auto industry, and banking. We are a free market economy and will ultimately collapse as a nation if we continue to allow an elitist oligarchy to take over our country. The government has never run anything efficiently and only intrudes more and more into our rights and privacy as we sit by and let it happen.
And what I expect now is to be called a “domestic terrorist,” part of the “mob,” “right-wing nut.” How about just a “concerned patriot.”
“The administration has fulfilled a promise to cut spending by trimming $100 million from the 2009 budget. That’s right — $100 million with an ‘m,’ an imponderably small slice of this year’s expenditures. Back in April, the White House stressed that President Obama, during his first Cabinet meeting, ‘made clear that relentlessly cutting out waste was part and parcel of their mission to make the investments necessary for recovery and long-term stability.’ Department heads were ‘to identify at least $100 million in additional cuts to their administrative budgets.’ Three months later, he has gotten his wish: The White House announced on Monday that the goal has been reached. To say such a cut is negligible is an exaggeration in the extreme. To fit that description, a cut first has to be visible. Though it was initially promoted as a seminal moment, this cut doesn’t come close to meeting even the most reachable of benchmarks. In fiscal 2009, our federal government will spend nearly $4 trillion, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s historical tables. The $100 million cut represents 0.0025% — less than one one-hundredth of 1% — of those outlays. … Now, thanks to the administration’s ‘relentless’ belt-tightening, the deficit will be $1.79999 trillion rather than $1.8 trillion.” –Investor’s Business Daily
Remaking America!
“After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust. When that person is the President of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited. Many people are rightly worried about what this administration’s reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief. He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts…. This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites — and ultimately the number one elite, Barack Obama himself. Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the capabilities of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power.” –economist Thomas Sowell
Hoover and Roosevelt Started It!
“Thinking about today’s massive deficits, we might ask: Where in the U.S. Constitution is Congress given the authority to do anything about the economy? Between 1787 and 1930, we have had both mild and severe economic downturns that have ranged from one to seven years. During that time there was no thought that Congress should enact New Deal legislation or stimulus packages along with massive corporate handouts. It took the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt administrations to massively intervene in the economy. As a result, they turned what might have been a two or three-year sharp downturn into a 16-year depression that ended in 1946. … Here’s my question: Were the presidents in office and congresses assembled from 1787 to 1930 ignorant of their constitutional authority to manage and save the economy?” –economist Walter E. Williams
Prescient Prognosticator!
“Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward statism…. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.” –English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
Apt Aphorism!
“You note that the socialized medicine bill is over 1,000 pages. The Declaration of Independence is two pages, and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is about a dozen pages. Proves that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance you baffle them with bovine manure.” –From a local newspaper Letters to the Editor
Wrong Rights!
“Is health care a right? I propose that one person’s rights may not create a burden for another person. We have the right to free speech, but we may not force someone else to listen. We have the right to worship as we choose, but we may not compel another person to attend church with us. We have the right to keep and bear arms, but if our neighbor chooses not to, we may not require that he carry a firearm. A right to health care cannot exist because it requires that someone else provide it. Another person may not infringe on my Liberty by requiring that I provide for his needs. That was called Slavery, and has long been abolished in America.” –Ditto above.
