It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

As Congress struggles with Health Care Reform, no one yet knows much about what it's final form will be, but we do know the promises that the President and Congressional leaders are making. They say they are going to lower the cost of health care, but raise the standard of care. They say they are going to expand health care coverage without creating shortages, but they don't say anything about where the new doctors and nurses will come from.

In trying to lower health care costs, clearly not much can be done to lower the cost of treating a cold. Take two asprine, take fluids, and get plenty of rest. Not much fat in there.
No, the cost savings will come from denying expensive treatments to people. No matter how that decison is made, that is where the dollar savings will come from. The argument that the insurance companies exersize that power now is riddiculious because were that the case, this argument would be moot. Clearly the insurance companies are paying for a lot of expensive treatment that is saving and improving a lot of people's lives. This is the only place significant costs savings will come from because this is where the big money is.

If it is true that the health plan will introduce 45 million new people into the 'system', then even a moron can see that we will need to add health care providers or we will have shortages. Who will the new 'providers' be? Well, it's damn sure most won't be doctors, and many won't even be speak good English. And, if you think you spend a lot of time in the waiting room now, get ready. You haven't seen anything yet.
Consider the implications of this. Because you'll be treated more often by 'para' professionals, we will see a lot more botched diagnoses. A good diagnostician is produced by years of study, and years of experience. The coming wave of 'para' professional has yet to finish High School. "Last week, I couldn't spell 'diagnostician' and this week I are one."
Finally, because the incentive is being taken out of medicine, the treatments we now have will be as good as it gets. Well, that's not entirely true. Research into favoured diseases will continue with federal money. AIDS research will continue, but work on ALS may wellgrind to a halt. Work on acnea treatments will continue, but work on new Altzhimers will likely be greatly diminished.

Sadly, for all the promises from all the politicians, the reality is that even with all our present health care problems, it just doesn't get any better than this. When they tell you otherwise, they are lying.

When in the course of human events....

Is it just me, or is anyone else concerned about the increasingly domineering role that government plays in our lives?

In just the last week, a 6 year old cub scout was suspended from school for bringing an eating utensil to school, and an Eagle Scout with aspirations of attending West Point was suspended for 20 days because the survival pack he kept locked in his car contained a pocket knife with a two inch blade. Mindless but enpowered bureaucrats blindly enforcing draconian regulations designed to keep our kids safe. Who protects our kids from the bureaucrats?

Last year, a kid we know pants another kid at school. To most, a school yard prank that deserved at least detention, and at most suspension. The Vice-Principal handling the matter was required by ' school board policy' to contact the school's Police Liason officer because the act constituted an 'assault' and resulted in 'indecent exposure'. Both the kids involved were 12 years old. The vice principal was following a regulation that could have resulted in a 12 year old boy being branded for life as a 'sex offender' because he pants another kid at school. Under that criteria, most of my friends from Jr.High were chronic sex offenders. Who protects our kids from the School Board?

Following nearly every incident involving a gun that makes the news, the immedate reaction among legislators (federal, state and local) is to loudly demand stricter gun control laws. Are these people oblivious to the fact that the criminals are already ignoring the umpteen zillion gun control laws that already exist? Do these morons think that the thugs will read the new law, and suddenly decide that this one new law is the straw that broke the camels back, and that they will now abandon their criminal ways? Nope. You and I will be the ones who obay the law, whose effect is to disarm those who would be victims. The irony is that the thugs, when caught, often get leniency due to a life of deprivation and hardship, and having grown up in a bad neighborhood. Watch what happens when you or I, people who have jobs, pay taxes and participate in the community, violate a gun law that we didn't even know existed. Who protects us from our government?

When in the course of human events.....

A Time of Change

Little over a year ago, my family visited Gettysburg. We walked to grounds, stood among the ghosts, and told the story of that awful war to my son. Prior to that day, he knew that there had been an American Civil War, but he really didn't know why. He understood that President Lincoln had freed the slaves, that good had triumphed, and the world became a better place.

We stood on top of Little Round Top and peered downing into the Valley of Death, and talked about history. We talked about how it must have felt to be a soldier ordered to advance through that tiny valley. My son climbed on the bolders where sharpshooters once hid, and his far away look told me he was thinking about what had taken place on this ground. We walked across some of the ground where the 131st Mississippi suffered 100% casualties during Pickett's Charge, and I told him that was the entire student body of The University of Mississippi.

If you ask most people about the causes of the Civil War, they will tell you it was fought to end slavery in this country. It is true that the war did result in the end of that terrible institution. Sadly, that is generally recognized as 'The' cause of the war. It is simply not true, but a case of the victor writing the history that they 'prefere' over the history that 'was'.

No one in their right mind can defend the practice or institution of slavery. If that was what the war was about, who can say the Union was wrong?

But if the war was about Slavery, why did South Carolina fire on the Union Navy approaching Fort Sumter? Did they fear that the Union Navy was about to free all the Slaves held in the Union fort?

No, the shooting didn't start because of a threat to slavery. It started because South Carolina refuesed to pay unjust taxes and rejected northern political domination. The Confederate Battle flags that flew as hundreds of thousands of young men struggled to their deaths stood not for the enslavement of man, but for his freedom. The cannons that pummeled Fort Sumter drove out those who would blockaid the harbor for the collection of the Merril Tarrifs. The first shots of the war were fired in the same spirit as the battle at Bunker Hill...in defiance of collection of taxes.

There was a time when you could tell this story, and help people understand why so many men fought and died so valiantly for so long. There was a time when it was important that we as a people remembered what it took to create our great country, when we as a people understood the sacrifices that were made by our forbearers and appreciated the legacy of wealth, prosperity and freedom that they left to us.

But, times have changed.

Today, we don't value history. We don't understand freedom. The federal government is about to redistribute our wealth, to tax us over greenhouse gasses, and force a federal health insurance program on us. Every where you look, the government is taking money you and I have sacraficed and worked to earn, and is giving it to someone else to support programs that we are absolutely opposed to. Where once we stood for democracy and freedom, today our government is finding common ground with dictators and petty despots. The cult of personality surrounding the presidency diminishes the office, and insults the individual sovoriegnity of the American People. It certainly has been a time of change.

Which way to Charlston Harbor? Imagine the courage it took to say "Hell no!" and to touch off that first cannon.

Our cannons are the ballot box.

Remember in November.

You Might Be a Racist if.....

You might be a racists if.....
.....you are opposed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. I believe that the United States ought to have clear and unmistakable nuclear deterance.
.....you do not believe that we should halt construction of the ballistic missile shield in Eastern Europe.
.....you do not believe that our health care issues can be solved by a massive federal program, but rather by common sense tort reform and other similar measures.
.....you believe that anything that allies us with Danial Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro is probably a mistake.
.....you do not believe that taxing me will stop global warming.
.....you do not believe that the president has any business discussing politics with school children.
....you do not believe that pulling of Afganistan is right. If the terrorists win, we lose.

Just a Thought

It's Political Campaign time.

Just a thought.....

A Vote for your Democrat Representative to Congress is a Vote for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

He have brought home the bacon for 30 years, but Nancy is going to fix health care for you and me.

He may be your children's Godfather, but Nancy is ramming Cap and Trade down our throats.

He may be your best friend, but remember, a government big enough to solve all your problems is a government big enough to take all you have.

Palintology

I like Sarah Palin because she isn't an ' elitist intellectual'. She didn't go to an Ive League School and most importantly she speaks plain english.

I like Sarah Palin because she is a soccer mom acting on her values, not a political hack or meglomaniac persuing a life long dream of political power. She's not out to establish "economic" justice or 'fix' the Constitution. Sarah Palin is a soccer mom who got angry at her city council for doing things she thought were wrong. She got involved and she won a seat on the council. Next, she became mayor, and finally she became governor. All this, because she didn't like the way things were being done. She wasn't elected because she is a woman. She was elected because a lot of people agreed with her ideas about what was wrong with government.

I like Sarah Palin because she is not the product of an corrupt political machine. Instead, she fought one and put a lot of theiving bastards in the penitentary. She is unsophistocated, which really is just saying that someone can still tell the difference between right and wrong and makes no appologies about it. If Alaskan oil money couldn't buy her, then she can't be bought.

I like Sarah Paline because she doesn't believe the government should be a provider health care, homes, food, cars or jobs. She does not believe that the government should take money away from those who earn it and give it to those who do not. She believes that the government should encourage prosperity, not penalize it; that the government should guarantee equal opportunity for prosperity, not equal access to the fruits of another's prosperity.

I like Sara Palin because no one has to tell her that an American President bows to no man. She knows that we fought a war about that in 1776. She understands that if you need gasoline, then you need oil. and if you need oil, then you have to drill for it, and if you need gasoline you have to refine the oil.

The thing that I think I like the most about Sarah Palin is that she scares the bejesus out of the Democrat nut case leftwingers and the hack corp of the Republican Party. Just mentioning her name drives both into a frenzy. They are absolutely horrified of her because the values they have seen in how she conducts her life are those of middle America. They are the values of farmers, and small bussiness owners, of carpenters, and truck drivers, doctors and country lawyers. They aren't phoney photo op values, but Norman Rockwell values of a good, and honest people doing good and honest things. Those values resonate with the real world.

The Left wingnutts are always better at identifying conservative leaders than the Republicans are, and both are scared to death. The Republican hacks know that the truth of her words and the validity of her record will peel the bark off of many of them and set the rest afire. Because she is a bona fide middle American, she is being assailed by windnutts and hacks. They fear her because they see her for what she is: honest.

They say she has no practical foreign policy experience. That may be a good thing. Though President Obama doesn't have any either, Biden and Hillary have 'mountains' of it, and they still can't send a clear message to any body on anything. I think GovernorPalin will do ok. She has no military experiance either, though I suspect her hunting experience has taught her that if a bear is charging at her, it is a good idea to shoot the bear before he is able to actually attack her. Unlike President Obama, Biden and Hillary, she'll understand that radical Islam is a charging bear who has already attacked more than once. She'll shoot the bear, and won't appologize for it. She has no experience with 'universal' health care, but she has enough sense to understand that America simply doesn't want it. She has never run a car company, but then again, our country never owned one before. She has never run banks or a mortage industry, but again, our country has never owned them before either. That was the Soviet Union. I would suspect she'll find a way to get these back where they belong in private sector. Because she sprang from local politics, I suspect that she respects local preferences and state sovorignity more than any president in recent memory. She may be our best hope to limit the dead hand of federal power.


I like Sarah Palin because she's angry about the same things that I am angry about. I like Sarah Palin because her idea of government help isn't a handout or a hold-up....oops...I mean a 'tax'. Her idea of government help is to get government off our backs, off our minds and out of our pockets. It's not government's responsibility to spend my earnings, it's mine. It's my government's responsibility to defend the boarders. Que Pasa Amigo?

I like Sarah Palin, and I think Thomas Jefferson would have liked her, too. I know she likes Thomas Jefferson, and Madison, and Washington. I believe in the United States Constitution and I like Sarah Palin because she believes in the United States Constitution, too.

What do you believe in?

Nine Out of Ten Morons Agree

Recently a friend commented to me that I ought to be glad that my Social Security dollars were not invested in the stock market as some had advocated a few years ago. After the meltdown of the last year or so, IRA and other investments are worth a lot less today than they were 18 months ago. As the econonmy continutes to crap out, and as President Obama struggles to get things moving again, the market will continue to be a very 'risky' place to put our retirement funds, my friend maintains.

Though tragic, at that moment, I realized that my friend is a moron.

Though my investments have lost roughly a third of their value, I still have them. I own them . They are mine. With Social Security, I have nothing but a 'deal' with the government. The government promised that they would take money from me each payday, which they did. In exchange, starting at 65 years of age, Social Security would send me a stipend for the rest of my natural life. Hmmm....not a bad deal...especially with life expectancies approaching 80 years.

Ah, but there is a catch in the giddy-up. Social Security will be broke in just a few years. This isn't news. We have known that it was acturiarly unsound for several decades. The weasles we send to Washington have not had the guts to fix it, thought they did figure out that if they give Social Security benefits to illegal aliens who 'follow a path' to citizenship, they will have a whole new class of paupers dependant on govenrment handouts for their existance.

After a lifetime of being coerced into contributing to and relying on a government promise of a retirement fund, the benefits side of the promise is about to be changed. Unless you are one of the thousands of illegal aliens who have never contributed to the program but whom the government wants to grant Social Security benefits to, the benefits side of that government 'promise' are about to change for the worse. The reality is that those who have contributed the most to this program are about to become the ones who recieve the least.

My 401k is invested in the America. I contribute to it every month. No matter whether the market is going up, or going down, I put a percentage of my income each month into my retirement accounts. I put my faith in free enterprise and capitalism. Through diversification and prudence, I protect my funds as a shepherd protects his flock, and I pray that President Obama doesn't nationalize anything have an interest in. ( It's really just a fancy way of saying the government stole a business.)

My friend laughed when I told him that I had lost roughly a third of my portfolio's value.

I asked him what he had. He said he had Barak Obama and Social Security.

I laughed.

You can't fix stupid.