Curing Health Care Ignorance

The greatest strength and greatest weakness of the Modern Liberal is optimism. This optimism is expressed as an undying faith in government (so long as it is a liberally run government) to solve all the problems of the world.



Take, for instance, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay (Miss Gitmo, if you're nasty). Here you have a bunch of guys who have been detained. Not arrested, not tried, not indicted by a grand jury. They're simply detained indefinitely. The liberals wanted these guys released because it's unconstitutional to hold someone without charging them with a crime.



But these dudes are terrorists, and nobody wanted them released. So the optimism of the Modern Liberal meets its ancient opponent: Reality. Barack then decides that instead of detaining them indefinitely, they'll be given "prolonged detention." It sounds nicer, and he even promises to create a legal mechanism to make it all legit.



So instead of doing what they set out to do (free the illegally detained), they're simply going to change the law to legalize their indefinite detentions. That's the kind of clever angleshooting (poker slang for circumventing the rules) that George W. Bush lacked.

And now to health care. does Barack want universal health care? No! At least, not tomorrow he doesn't. He does by the end of his first term, or at least that's what he said in 2007.



So what does he want? Why is it that I don't know what he wants? Why is it so hard to know things about this guy and where he stands on issues? Does he still smoke?



Barack's campaign wrote checks that his policies can't cash. HEALTHCARE IS EXPENSIVE. People live for 80 years now. They spend the last 30 of those years going to the doctor once a month. They spend the last 20 of those years taking 5 pills a day. They spend the last 10 of those years in nursing homes, taking 15 pills a day. They spend the last 5 of those years in intensive care wards.

That shit costs money.

We're able to do things with cancer that we couldn't do 10 years ago. So now a patient that would have died at age 40 in 1990, lives to age 60 in 2009. But that's 20 more years of kemo, pills, and doctor visits.

That shit costs money.

We're able to give EKGs at physicals, have an MRI machine at every hospital, and give people face transplants.

That shit costs money.



So as the cost of health care increase, the costs of health insurance also increase. That's how insurance works.



So I simply don't see how the government is going to reduce costs. Maybe Barack can explain it to me...



So he wants:

1. Cheaper healthcare
2. Choice in healthcare
3. Healthcare for all

Well that's great, but HOW? How do you make an X-Ray machine cheaper?

One proposal makes sense until it's scrutinized a bit (like most liberal policies). 46 million Americans are uninsured, and can't afford to pay their hospital bills when they get sick/injured. So the hospital has to eat the cost, which increases what they charge insurance companies, which increases the premiums insurance companies charge their customers.

Makes sense. If you insured these 46 million people, then this expensive conga-line of charges wouldn't have to take place.

But remember, insurance is based on that whole group principle. It's more expensive to properly insure 46 million people then to give 46 million people medical coverage. Or if insured by the government, it costs the same (that's if the government gets its numbers right, which it usually does, right?)



So including 46 million people among the insured DOESN'T reduce the costs of giving them care. Health insurance is based on the principle that it costs $100/year to care for 10 people, so each person pays $10, even though some people might need $15, or $20 worth of care, and others only $5.

It costs $X to give 46 million people health care. It will cost $X (and possibly more) if they're insured, and it will cost $X if they're not.

Then there's the argument that doctors give unneeded tests in order to fatten their wallets. I talked to my physician about health care reform and he was really offended by this notion.



I remember one time, I had blood in my urine. I drove from Ithaca to Boston to see MY doctor, in MY hospital, because the facilities in Boston are 1,000 times better than some farmer's hospital in Central New York.

I spent the day in Faulkner Hospital, getting bloodwork, peeing into cups, getting X-Rays. The tentative diagnosis was a kidney stone, but my physician wanted to make sure I didn't have bladder cancer. So I went to a urologist, and my bladder was "checked" in one of the most traumatic medical procedures imaginable. And if you're guessing where they put the tube-camera, all I can say is "I wish."

I guess that test was "unnecessary" according to some Super Liberal health care reformist, because I didn't have cancer. And I'm sure that Harvard/Pilgrim (my insurer) called up my physician and asked him why some 20 year old was getting a day of treatments and tests meant for a 50 year old.

But that's what's so great about my private sector capitalist health insurance. MY DOCTOR determines what tests are necessary and unnecessary. But he's watched by the bean-counters at my insurance company. Harvard/Pilgrim doesn't want things getting too expensive because there's COMPETITION out there. And I keep tabs on my insurance company, because if there's something cheaper out there, I'm switching.



The liberals also want to cover people with preexisting conditions, and somehow that will make things cheaper? It's just a fact that an 80 year old diabetic man with three kinds of cancer is more expensive to care for than a 25 year old woman who's at her ideal weight and exercises everyday. So how is insuring the expensive-to-insure, going to reduce costs?

One mantra of the liberals is to pay doctors/hospitals for "Quality" of their care, and not "Quantity." How the fuck do you do that? How do you measure the quality of a doctor's care?

I guess you could go by how healthy his/her patients are. But wait a minute, wouldn't that encourage doctors to fill their patient rosters with fit young people instead of the old and sick? My physician's patients are mostly 50+ (he was my mother's doctor, so I'm one of the few people under 30 that are under his care). How do you measure the quality of care for a physician like him? All his patients are getting progressively sicker, so I guess he's a bad doctor. Meanwhile, Dr. Greedy has the US Gymnastics team for his patients. They're all in perfect shape, so he must be a great doctor. GIVE HIM A RAISE!!!



Health care is not perfect. It's expensive, and people still die. But there's nothing any government can do about it without resorting to socialism. I guess you could make the richest 1% of the country pay for health care. And that sounds nice. But that means less people EMPLOYED by the richest 1%.



But what's another 5% unemployed in a consumer-based economy? At least they'll still have health care. They won't have anything else, like the freedom to go out and make a living for themselves, or the ability to positively contribute to society. But they'll have health care. It will be a long-line, inefficient, the-mayor's-brother-in-law-is-the-nurse kind of health care, but they'll have it.

Liberal Editing of History

What are some words that pop into your head when you think about Richard Nixon? Scandal, cheat, Watergate, corruption, impeachment, resignation, dick, prick, asshole, and so on.



We all know about Nixon getting caught in the Watergate scandal, which has lead to the unfortunate tendency to add "-Gate" at the end of every scandal or potential scandal since then. See: SpyGate.

Did you know he pulled US ground troops out of Vietnam? Liberal leaning people will talk about his secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia, but they gloss over the fact that Nixon shifted Vietnam from a ground war to an air war. And Nixon negotiated the ceasefire with North Vietnam.

Oh yeah, he also opened relations with China, and tried to end the Cold War (or at least thaw it out a bit) diplomatically with Russia.

But he has an (R) next to his name, so he was not only a bad man, but a bad President. All that matters is Watergate. Anything he did before that has been ignored by the amateur liberal historian.

We're all amateur historians. We all formulate opinions on past events. Most of us think, for instance, that Hitler sucked. But the liberals among us don't just form opinions. They form facts. They edit history to glorify their own beliefs, and belittle opposing beliefs.



Real facts: 95% of Indians were whiped out by disease and not white men with guns. Most black slaves were sold by other Africans to white slave traders. Sam Colt was from Connecticut, and didn't invent the revolver to suppress slave rebellions. In fact, there were almost no slave rebellions. The NRA was founded by ex-Union Civil War officers in New York, and hardly had anything to do with the KKK, which was founded by ex-Confederates in Tennessee. The 8th President of the NRA was Ulysses S. Grant. Y'know, the guy who was in charge of the Union Army that freed the slaves.

And perhaps we all do it, but I just tend to notice liberals' skewings more. In my honest opinion, I think most people hold liberal beliefs in order to feel better about themselves. It's almost a psychological condition. They need to feel concerned about the environment, or health care for the poor, or people who can't afford to buy a house, all so they can look in the mirror and see a Saint.



So let's just take a stroll back through history with liberal lenses.

George W. Bush is responsible for our current economic crisis. Yes, because he was in charge when the bubble was growing. But Bill Clinton was NOT responsible for the collapse of the .com bubble. Even though he was in charge when the bubble was growing. In fact, under Clinton the economy was stupendous! Everybody had lots of money, and jobs, and bloated portfolios with Pets.com and $150 a share Amazon.com stock.



Even though all that money, all those jobs, and all those stocks were built on a foundation of imagination and not reality, the economy under Clintion was fantastic. Riiiiiiiiight.

Then there's Ronald Reagan. Liberals utterly refuse to give Reagan credit for anything. And every year, they belittle him more and more. They used to just say he was overrated as a President. Now they'll argue that he was a bad President. Eventually, they'll suggest he was the Antichrist, and was the harbinger of the Apocalypse (in 2012, right?). Liberals refuse to admit that supply side economics can work. They refuse to give an ounce of credit to Reagan for helping to end the Cold War.



Then there's JFK. Excuse me, to liberals he's St. John of Brookline. Maybe it's just because I'm in the epicenter of Kennedy love here in Massachusetts, but to me, JFK is the most overrated President in history. People equate him to Lincoln, which is like equating Carter to Washington.

The Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Listen to a Kennedy lover gush on and on about the CMC. How JFK was so calm, so collected, played a game of chicken and made the other guy blink.



Ever hear of the Bay of Pigs? 1,500 Cubans who had been exiled from their home by Castro's revolution, armed and trained by the CIA, invade Cuba. But without suppressing fire from the Navy, or air support, the invasion is a colossal failure. Who ordered this farce? JFK. Who ordered that there be no air support? JFK. So not only did he send these guys in, he sent them in with next to no chance of achieving their objectives.

In response to this 1961 invasion, Cuba runs to the open arms of the Soviet Union. The USSR places nuclear missiles in Cuba, which function as a deterrent to any further invasions.

But JFK never gets blamed for the Bay of Pigs, or for his part in CAUSING the Cuban Missile Crisis. He always gets credit for ENDING it. That's like training a dog to eat children's faces, then getting applauded when you stop him from biting some kid's face off.

Oh, and who increased the US military's presence in Vietnam from 800 men to 16,300 (that's a 2000% increase, BTW)? It was JFK. And liberals can't even fathom this. They point out that he was planning to scale down US involvement there before he was killed. That seems likely, but liberals go one step farther than this. They GLORIFY him for wanting to pull troops out. The same troops he sent there! Again, it's the face-eating dog all over again. He's praised for cleaning up the messes he makes. But in this case, he's praised for POSSIBLY INTENDING TO SOMEDAY MAYBE CLEAN UP HIS MESS!!!



Then there's FDR. And here's where we get to something dangerous. I remember in my junior high and high school history books, reading about the Great Depression. Junior year in HS we spent 2 weeks on the Depression (and only two days on World War II). We learned about the New Deal, and how great FDR's policies were. The alphabet soup of TVA, the AAA, CCC, WPA, CWA, FSA, FHA, the PWA, and the SSA. We were taught that all these programs got America out of the Depression.

But that's not the whole truth, is it? Government programs helped slow down the economy's decline, but they didn't stimulate it's regrowth. World War II stimulated the growth of the US economy, like snorting 15 lines of cocaine laced with Viagra and ecstasy.

We sold scrap metal and oil to Japan, tanks and planes to Britain, radios and jeeps to Russia, and we lent money. We lent money to countries so that they could buy stuff from us. Is there any better way to make money? Then after the war, we lend more money to all these war torn countries. We sell them our stuff so they can rebuild. Meanwhile, the only products they can buy are American, because we're the only country in the world with any industry left. That's how GM, Chrysler, and Ford got so big, they were the only game in town. Then Germany, Japan, and Korea rebuild their factories, figure out ways to make better cars, and so GM goes bankrupt.



I can go on and on about how much World War II boosted our economy, but most basic history books won't. They'll talk about how great the New Deal was.

And this is dangerous. Because right now, in power, are people who read the same kind of liberalized histories. These are people who think quasi-socialist programs can help turn an economy around. They think there's an historical precedent for this, and they're quite wrong.

Government spending and socialist style programs do have a place, even in a conservative capitalist's dream economy. Here's an interesting NY Times editorial. Also, note how the writer can't resist insulting Ronald Reagan. And my favorite liberal line was:

"Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall."

So liberals estimate that liberal policies have worked, and they also estimate that their own policies will continue to work. Where people are getting these numbers of jobs saved is beyond me. Couldn't you use the same logic to suggest that Barack's helped 100 million people remain employed? Wow, isn't he AMAZING. Siiiiiiiigh.

But this guys broader points are dead-on. Big Government has helped keep our economy from tumbling down a cliff.

But, if the US economy is a freight train, then government spending is only the braking system. Every train needs a good braking system. Brakes help you slow down when you're going down a steep hill, as the economy has been doing. But brakes don't help you move forward. They don't help you get OVER the next hill.



When you reach the bottom of a dangerous hill, and slow to a safe speed, you get off the brakes and let the train's engines (the private sector) do their thing. You don't ride the brakes when you're trying to go uphill.

The lessons of the Great Depression were vital to preventing Depression 2.0 in 2008 and 2009. But I'm afraid that liberals didn't learn the entire lesson. They took the junior high history of the New Deal saving America's economy. They didn't realize that it stopped the decline, but was actually detrimental to future growth.

History is a great thing to learn from. Unfortunately, liberals don't want to learn from history. They seek only to glorify themselves through it.

"A Teachable Moment"

That's how Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons described the arrest of Henry Louis Gates. Only the Mayor of Cambridge could get away with not having a first name.



But she's right. The arrest of Professor Gates by Sergeant Crowley is an opportunity to learn many lessons. Lessons about people. Lessons about the media. Lessons about our society.

Imagine being pulled over by the police, for apparently no reason. You're driving the speed limit, using your turn signals, all that good stuff. You get pulled over, the officer walks up to your window, and requests "License and registration."

And you say "No." What do you think the officer's reaction would be? Even if you gave him/her your ID after that, do you think this officer would be happy with you? Do you think they'd let you go with that broken tail light you didn't know about?

Now let's say the cop misread your license plate and thought you were someone else. So you start yelling at the officer. Do you think the cop would just apologize and walk away?

Notice how in all of these hypotheticals, I never said what color you or the officer were? Because that doesn't matter.



Cops, as part of their job description, are jerks. Not all the time. But just like they carry a gun but don't always use it, they all have chips on their shoulders that they don't always use. Cops EXPECT to be treated with respect. Especially veteran cops. They expect to see a license when they ask for one. They expect you to pull over when they flash their lights. And even when they make mistakes, they still expect to be treated with deference.

That's just the way of things.

Here's what WE KNOW happened in Cambridge on July 16:

1. Gates got home, his door was stuck due to a previous break-in, he and his driver attempted to pry it open

2. Lucia Whalen, who works at nearby Harvard Magazine, walked by and saw this. She then called the police and reported a possible break-in.

3. Sargeant Crowley arrived at the scene. An argument ensued. Not surprisingly, there are two sides to this part of the story.

4. Once asked to bring the discussion outside, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct

5. The charges were dropped upon the recommendation of the city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department.

6. Barack began practicing yoga so he could properly jam his foot into his mouth.

Plenty of people have commented on this event. And I think most out there realize that this wasn't racial profiling, or racially motivated. Some still think it was, but these clowns also think that the criticism around Barry Bonds was racially motivated, or that everyone who voted for McCain is a racist, or that a term like "Africanized killer bees" is a racially based way to describe overly aggressive bees that come from Africa.



I'm more interested in the aftermath of this fiasco. I think the media's overreaction was a priceless example of how crappy news coverage truly is. I think watching a hyperactive overly sensitive nut like Al Sharpton jump to conclusions further discredits him, if that were possible. And then there was Barack's conclusion jumping, and his inability to apologize for doing so.



Barack assumed this was a racial profiling case. He saw what a lot of people saw: a man being arrested, apparently for breaking into his own home. Normally this would be a cop gone mad with power, unless the guy arrested was black, and the cop was white. Then it's racism. And this is my favorite assumption of all. There was no room for doubt that this was racially motivated. It couldn't just be a dickhead cop on a power trip, it HAD to be racially motivated.



Then Barack was asked some questions, admitted to not knowing the facts, then opined anyway. Imagine not watching a baseball game, not even looking at the boxscore, then answering a question about how the pitcher did.

Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here... The police are doing what they should ...There’s a call. They go investigate. What happens? My understanding is that Professor Gates then shows his I.D. to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct. I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that...But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That’s just a fact

Two things piss me off the most. #1, calling the police "stupid." That word is completely demeaning. Even if you think the arrest was wrong or a mistake, that doesn't mean that the entire Department is stupid, nor does it mean that Crowley is stupid. Smart people make mistakes too.



#2, that thing at the end about cops. Yes, there are countless incidents of racial profiling, and other racist practices by cops, both in the past and in the present. BUT, it's an unfortunate generalization that Barack is participating in. He's criticizing cops for judging people based on color, and in doing so is a hypocrite because he's discriminating based on a group. Racial profiling is abhorrent, but so is being prejudiced against the color Blue.



Here's Michael Moore criticizing the entire NYPD, which boasts over 37,000 officers, for what 4 dumb, trigger happy, scared shitless morons did. Could you imagine judging 37,000 people (about the size of Norwood, MA or a full Fenway Park) for what 4 people did? Hmmmmm, judging people by the group. What's the word for that? Oh yeah, PREJUDICE!

And Barack did a similar thing. He mentions racial profiling and its unfortunate place in our history. But what does that have to do with anything in this matter? Because racial profiling HAS HAPPENED, it means that when a white officer arrests a black man, it's probably because of racial profiling? Isn't coming to such a conclusion a form of profiling? Because cops have done it in the past, they'll probably do it again. Those cops can't help themselves. It's in their nature to profile.

There are around 700,000 police officers in the US. Not all of them are profilers. I'd venture to say that an overwhelming majority are not.

Then there was Barack's non-apologetic apology:

Because this has been ratcheting up -- and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up -- I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think, I unfortunately... gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically. And I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley. I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved [...] There are some who say that as President I shouldn’t have stepped into this at all because it’s a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive — as opposed to negative — understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio

He can't just say that he was wrong? He makes it seem like by calling the Cambridge PD "stupid" he didn't intend to say anything bad about them. He could have "calibrated those words differently?" How the fuck do you calibrate words? What the fuck does that even mean? He can't even say that he used the wrong word, it was just improperly calibrated.

A politician refusing to admit he was wrong, dodging mistakes, not taking responsibility, falling on his face and pretending to have done it on purpose. Does that sound familiar?

And for all you change loving, hope mongering Obamanauts out there, this is your so-called different kind of President. He's a flim-flam man, a con artist, a politician just like every other politician. You may still think he's the best in breed among politicians, but his breed is the same as everyone else in Washington.

Health Care Reform on Life Support

Barack's latest Hope Crusade: Healthcare Reform. Funny how we call things like this Crusades. The original Crusades started with seemingly good intentions of a pious and religious nature. But when the Crusaders actually went Crusading, they raped, pillaged, killed just about anyone they could. And in the end, only the First Crusade succeeded, with the following 7 failing (and as its supporting Crusades failed, the First one was also essentially a failure). And that's what Barack's Healthcare Crusade will be. Even if it "succeeds" it will only fail in the long run.

Healthcare's expensive, and the Uberliberals hate that. Who doesn't hate that? And being liberals, they think that Government can and should solve every problem in the world.

Healthcare is costly for many reasons. But here are the main ones:

1. It's very good, and very high tech.
MRIs, EKGs, blood work, and that's just the basics you'd get at a routine physical. Microsurgery and all the not-so-regular stuff is even more expensive. Then there are drugs, which take billions of dollars to research and develop. And no, you shouldn't make all drugs generic, because then drug companies would stop making them (no profit potential=no research)

2. We live longer
A 60 year old man needs healthcare much more than a 40 year old man. And a 20 year old man needs the least care of all. As the Baby Boomer generation grows old, they need more care. Which costs more money.

3. We're not healthy
Obesity overtook cigarette smoking as the #1 cause of death in this country a few years ago. Obesity leads to countless heart problems, diabetes, nutritionists, muscle problems, back problems, and so on. All these are extremely expensive to care for.

4. Insurance is no longer a form of risk management
Why have health insurance? In case you fall down the stairs, break all your ribs, you don't want the hospital to break your bank account to pay for the treatment. So you pay small monthly premiums, so just in case the worst happens, you don't have to pay crippling medical bills. In fact, you HOPE to lose money on insurance in the long run. You hope to pay more into your insurance than your medical expenses warrant. But these days, routine and regular visits to the doctor, as well as tests and prescription pills, are very expensive. Yet they're paid for by health insurance. That's not risk management, it's a payment plan.

So how does the government solve problems like our healthcare being so high tech and so good? By making it worse? Lower tech? Leeches were cheap, MRIs are expensive.

How does the government fix the problem of people living so long? Put little diamonds in their palms and kill them when they turn 30?



And what about the problem with the general health of Americans? You can't FORCE people to lose weight, quit smoking, and exercise. You can't make it illegal to be fat. I wouldn't have a problem with the government funding free public gyms and stuff like that, but it's unconstitutional to force people to be healthy.

Then there's that whole insurance/risk management thing. Now there's something the government could solve. You wouldn't expect an auto insurance policy to pay for your oil change, so why should health insurance cover physicals and other routine appointments? Perhaps this area of healthcare should be reexamined.

Is having health insurance an inalienable right? No. Absolutely not. Americans have the right TO BUY health insurance, but it's not something that should be given out by the government. It's not a necessity of life. Before the 1860s, no American had ever had health insurance. Modern health insurance didn't come about until the 1920s.

How did mankind survive before health insurance? Who knows? Scholars maintain the explanation was lost hundreds of years ago.

I do think healthcare could use some reform. But it's important to stay true to that word "reform." An overhaul is not reform. A complete 180° is not reform.

Malpractice law needs to be adjusted so doctors and hospitals are not overly targeted. Doctors should only be held responsible for death or injury if it can be proven that they were negligent or grossly incompetent. They shouldn't get sued for simply making a mistake, which is what humans tend to do. Malpractice insurance is a massive expense built in to health care. But of course, Nanny Liberals think that if someone goes to a hospital, but dies, then it's governments job to somehow fix the problem. And that's where you get frivolous malpractice lawsuits, which are very costly even when won.

There are too many lawsuits in this country as is.



Universal health insurance is not the answer. And I'll give an anecdotal reason why. Currently, government provides us with a free education through high school. Let's say a high school senior, who doesn't legally have to attend school, isn't trying, and fails all his classes. He's kicked out of school.

Now let's say we had universal health insurance. Some person isn't trying to stay healthy, weighs 400 pounds, has diabetes, heart disease, smokes 4 packs a day, and drinks a gallon of Jack Daniels every night. Shouldn't this person be ejected from a universal health care system? Does this person deserve public funds to be spent on their hugely expensive medical costs?

And if you think this grotesque kind of person is a rarity, then you've never been to Alabama.


Alabama Man - Watch more Funny Videos

Universal health care is a nice, pretty, happy idea. But like having a tea party on railroad tracks, it's a pleasant thought that inevitably will be destroyed by the harsh realities of life.

Government organizations are inefficient. This is because the best employees are snatched up by the private sector, and because most politicians are where they are because of who they know and/or how much money they have, not for any real merit.



Furthermore, our government IS DESIGNED to be inefficient. It's called checks and balances. It's an intentional obstacle to quick change. The people have to really want something in order for it to happen.

Adding government bureaucracy to healthcare will make it slower, more expensive, and of lesser quality.

I'm selfish, so I don't want to pay for people I don't know and don't care about to see their doctor. But maybe I'm in the minority. If so, why not put a checkbox on tax returns. Ask the taxpayer "Would you like to donate $x,xxx into the National Health Insurance Program?" See how many people check "Yes!"

Or we could just get the rich to pay for it. Tax from the rich, redistribute to the poor. I thought Barack was from Chicago, not Sherwood Forest.



Taxing the rich is great! And fun! They probably inherited their money anyway. Or if they didn't they schemed it away from people some other way. Then again, these are the people who invest in small businesses. These are the people who buy cars, giving the car salesman a job. These are the people who add guest rooms to their mansions, giving the contractor and painter and plumber and electrician a job. These are the people who hire accountants, lawyers, nannies, maids, butlers, and so on. These are the people who go out to dinner, give their kids $100 to go to the mall, and so on.

Rich people, unlike what liberals think, are not like Scrooge McDuck. They don't keep their money in vaults to swim around in. They do two things with money: spend and invest.



I have no qualms about taxing the rich to improve the public school system, or even heavily taxing inheritance to encourage people to spend more while they're alive. But it's very stupid to view the rich as a neverending pool of potential revenue for endless amounts of entitlement programs.

Social security is faltering, so tax the rich!

Healthcare is expensive, so tax the rich!

Red Sox tickets are too hard to get, so tax the rich!

So be careful what you tax the rich for. Rich people create jobs, just like Ted DiBiase created a job for Virgil.

Imminent Immigration and Entitlement Entanglement

I can trace my paternal family lines from where I live in Massachusetts back through western New York, then back to Germany, then to the Ukraine and Russian steppe, eventually back to Africa. And on my mother's side, through Boston to Ireland, Scotland, and England, then back to Normandy, then Scandinavia as a Viking, and then back to Africa. We can all go back to Africa. Funnily enough, the 2 conquest obsessed sides of my family have frequently fought with each other for domination of northern Europe.

I'm a descendant of immigrants. Everyone in this country is, even Native Americans. The inscription on the State of Liberty reads:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

I don't see where it says "first come, first served."



Why were my ancestors the Zeitlers easily allowed into this country circa 1830? And how about the Kierans about 100 years ago? Why so much hassle about immigrants these days?

I believe America should be open to just about everyone except criminals (unless their crime was something like protesting an election in Cuba). Yet I can tell you precisely why I currently believe in tight immigration restriction. And it's the only problem i have with immigration. It also illustrates many of the difficulties of a socialist/welfare/nanny state.

I remember after a long, sleepless overnight flight from Washington to London; being grilled by the British immigration people. Before allowing me entry to England, they asked me to "prove that I would leave the country." They didn't want me staying there, benefiting from their universal health care and other social services. They eventually stamped my passport, leaving a mark that read "Employment and Recourse to Public Funds Prohibited."



Liberals hate illegal immigration laws. They want to give illegal immigrants amnesty to stay in the country. They fight against any drive to remove/punish illegal immigrants. And you may or may not have noticed that the stimulus packages contain no funds for improving border facilities in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Coincidence?

And I'm actually with them. I think instead of barb-wire fences and border patrols, there should be Ellis Island type facilities, registering new Americans, and welcoming them to the country. But if and ONLY IF the United States is not a socialist welfare state.



If people are given free health care (actually, we should call it health care paid by others) at the border, it costs everyone money. I don't mind welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses of the world. But I'm selfish. I do mind paying for them.

And that's the dilemma of the Uberliberals and what they want. They want there to be no barriers to immigration. But they also want everyone to be given things like health care, welfare, medicaid, social security. That means that the arrival of every new American, typically without a job and with very little in their pockets, will quite literally cost other Americans money.

But of course the liberals don't care. They believe government can and should solve all the problems of the universe. They think everyone should be allowed into this country, and completely cared for by the government.

The liberals will point to semi-socialist states like Britain and Canada as brilliant examples of socialist successes. But do you know how hard it is to get Canadian citizenship? My cousin's been trying for years. He's got no record, works, has family in Canada, impeccable references, but it's easier to get into MIT than to become a Canuck.



It's one or the other. You can't give every American all these wonderful benefits while simultaneously allowing anyone in the world to become an American. That would be ruinous.

And once the entitlements stop. Once social security is either abolished or finally collapses under the weight of its own stupidity, once people decide that people need to take care of themselves, then I'll be one of the first to go down to Texas and process all the new Americans. Unfortunately, liberals tend to fight against reality. A battle they've always lost in the end.

Pulling Out of Iraq, Double Stuffing Afghanistan, and Ignoring Iran

In a letter to the editor thingy I found on Boston.com, Ken from Arlington said:

"Obama was absolutely correct not to give Iran’s theocracy the benefit of appearing to meddle in its obviously rigged election process - a process to elect what is essentially the country’s number two leader.

"Condemning the violence that is occurring in Iran’s streets, rather than bringing that violence, as in Iraq, is a smart first step toward redefining democracy in the Middle East."

In other words, whatever Barack does, Barackis will adore him for it. This guy is praising Barack for ignoring an illegitimate election in Iran. This guy was probably one of the many liberals who protested the 2000 US election. There was a very well written comment in support of this letter. In parenthesis are my thoughts:

"Brilliant letter! (it agrees with me, it must be brilliant) Jeff Jacoby is consistently blinded to facts on the ground by his own right wing ideology (conservatives are always wrong because they're conservative). He seems incapable of an evolution in thought and political analysis, still clinging to 'evil-doer' dualism and American triumphalism (I support ismism). You might think he would recognize that Bush's belligerent rhetoric on 'Democracy' gave us Hamas, the empowerment of Iran following our invasion of Iraq, and global enmity for torture (He also started the IRA and he's responsible for the Oklahoma City bombings). Jacoby in effect justifies all of this philosophically. It's ugly stuff. And of course he completely misses the new paradigm President Obama has initiated in the mid-east. Under Bush there was no dissent in Iran, they were united against the U.S (before Twitter we had no clue what was going on inside Iran). Under Obama, we see new expressions of people power, including the election in Lebanon two weeks ago. (Obama gave us Twitter)"

All this eloquence and high diction came from someone called "Tomato76." And is even more deification of Barack. Every sunny day this summer will be because of Barack. Every rainy day is still because of W. IT'S A GLOBAL REOVLUTION!



Today is an historically ambivalent day. The US military is leaving the cities of Iraq to be policed by Iraqis, and terrorized by Iranians. Americans will now police only the countryside. It's Iraq's turn to walk a bit on its own, albeit with an American cane.

The liberals must love this. No more blood for oil, just blood for sand. Frankly, I think complete withdrawal from Iraq is long overdue. We accomplished/failed with what we wanted to do. Everything since the ousting and capture of Saddam has been a waste of life and material.

And remember, these soldiers aren't coming home. They're going to Afghanistan. No more blood for oil, now it's blood for opium. The media will mention this as rarely as possible. But hey, that's where the war against terror "began." And we have to get Osama bin Laden. Because he's the only terrorist in the world, and there's only terrorism in Afghanistan. Nobody from Saudi Arabia was on any of those hijacked planes.

And there's absolutely no terrorism spawning from Iran. There's no reason to even acknowledge Iran's existence. We can reason with Iran. We can reason with a government that's not only illegitimate, but is nothing more than a puppet of the religious power holders. We're dealing with the 21st century's Holy Roman Empire here.

But I'm sure Barack's policy of doing nothing will work. After all, he's already responsible for all the protests in Iran, right?

There is something to be said for a policy of ignoring Iran. Most of the "countries" in the Mid-East are fractured and fragmented, but can easily be united by a common hatred for America. So if America stays out of the picture, it allows for dissent and possible change in the region. Hope. Yes we can.



But won't the new leaders still have that hatred for America? And since when do we care about what Iran thinks of us? America didn't become America by tiptoeing around the world in hopes of being the most popular kid in the UN cafeteria.

And all the liberals that protested the 2000 election in Florida, where are you in all this? Why don't you fly to Tehran to protest for fair elections, just like you flew to Tallahassee? Or are you still working on your conspiracy theories regarding the 2004 election in Ohio?



I love how if there are irregularities, and a Republican wins, then the election is rigged. And the air-quote dude who deemed towing to be voter intimidation should rent a time machine and travel to 1932 Germany.

And where the fuck is that impotent group called the UN in all this Iranity? How useless is that organization?

Barack's liberals and Bush's conservatives have two conflicting philosophies on terrorism. Bush thinks terrorism ends with US involvement. Barack thinks terrorism begins with US involvement. Both are wrong. Terrorism never starts and never ends. Terrorism thrives when it works and dies when it fails. You leave Iraq because you want to leave Iraq, not because you're afraid of upsetting the terrorists.

But Barack and the liberals want America to win popularity contests. They'd rather have the people of Iran suffering under a fake government but loving America. And we all know that the world loves America the most when we stay out of foreign affairs...

Negative Action

God, can't she just say she had great grades and fucked up the SAT? Hell, I had a great SAT (1400 back in the 1600 days), and mediocre GPA with no activities. I could bitch and moan about grades and activities being culturally biased, or I could just say "I didn't try that hard."

And I'm not attacking Sotomayor here. I'm not proclaiming her to be an affirmative action appointment (like Pat Buchanan has). She seems like a decent judge with experience, credibility, et cetera. I have no problem with her being on the Supreme Court.

No, my problem is with affirmative action itself, perhaps the most vile government policy in modern times. Little to me is more abhorrent as selecting someone for a job, or for a school based on their race.

Affirmative action is not racism. But it is discrimination. Look it up. Discrimination = "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." And discrimination is wrong, right?

That's the argument for affirmative action, correct? Discrimination in the past was wrong, so we'll fix it with discrimination in the present. Let's call it counter-discrimination, which is what it is. And it's not "reverse racism," that term sucks. A FoxNewsism if there ever was one.

I think "counter-discrimination" is a fair term. And it isn't discrimination AGAINST whites, it's discrimination FOR non-whites. But imagine how hard it would be to get something called "counter-discrimination" into law?

Why does affirmative action exist? Because racial discrimination has been part of American law, policy, and life for centuries. Not just slavery, but Jim Crow laws, segregation, and so on. This longstanding institutional racism has put minorities in poor position to compete in this country. And I'm not arguing against this FACT at all.



But that's history, folks. Someone once asked me why I'm so interested in history. After all, everything in history books has already happened. Who cares? But history is WHY and HOW the present is the way it is, for better or worse.

But undoing centuries of discrimination is like trying to put a broken egg back together again. You might glue it, use some duct tape, and maybe paint over the cracks. But it's still broken. I advise that you get on with your life, use the broken egg to make some French Toast, and have a nice day.

Undoing centuries of discrimination via counter-discrimination is like breaking the egg, then breaking all the other foods in the kitchen so EVERYTHING is broken, therefore making the egg the same as everything else.

Affirmative action's supporters' first line of defense is very telling. This is actually a well-written and well thought out defense of affirmative action right here. I'll quote from it:

The claim is that these programs distort what is now a level playing field and bestow preferential treatment on undeserving minorities because of the color of their skin. While this view seems very logical on the surface, I contend that it lacks any historical support and is aimed more at preserving existing white privilege than establishing equality of opportunity for all.

So basically, those who argue against affirmative action are doing so because they want to preserve their "existing white privilege." So since I'm white, and upper-middle class, I can't argue against affirmative action as a policy, I can only defend my precious "white male hegemony." With such a fallacious and dismissive first defense, how could such a policy be amoral?

Just imagine this. I get married, have two kids (boy and girl), get divorced, get married to another woman, have two more kids (boy and girl). Both my wives die of swine flu, so all four kids come to live with me. But let's say my first wife was white and my second wife was black. Now I have four children, with the same father, same economic status, and even sharing some similar Irish and German roots. Yet with affirmative action, the children from my second wife are able to get into better schools than the children from my first wife. They're able to get better jobs, get promoted faster, et cetera.

Does this seem American to you? Does it even seem fair?

I'll not lie, the playing field IS NOT fair and even. I got a $130,000 education from Ithaca College, paid for by my parents' hard work. I got a free car, free health insurance, and I'm debt free, all thanks to my parents. That's not fair. I know people who had to pay for their own college. I know people who couldn't afford to pay and had to transfer or leave school altogether. That's not fair. I knew people who had to bust their ass working two jobs while they were at school. Meanwhile, I got free time to study and play Madden. Not fair.



Life's not fucking fair. Sorry folks, but that's the truth. And it isn't the government's job to make it fair. It's the government's job to remove barriers to fairness and potential upward mobility, like segregation and voting restrictions. But leveling hills and mountains on that playing field is both impossible, and unethical.

There is a natural force that allows, and even drives playing fields to be even. It's called competition. When and where there is discrimination, there will be weakness. If only whites or blacks are allowed to work for a company, that company will be weaker, especially if a competitor is hiring people based on QUALITY and not ETHNICITY.

Look at baseball in 1947. Before then, there were barriers to black players. Baseball desegregated itself, thanks to Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and the desire to win. That same desire to win turned owners who once barred black players into owners who craved them.

But what happened to teams that failed to select players based on quality? The Red Sox were the last team to integrate. They passed up on Jackie Robinson in 1945. Which is, in a way, understandable, because being the first integrated team would have been difficult. But in 1949, there were multiple black players in MLB, and the Red Sox passed up a chance to acquire Willie Mays for a song. Willie fucking Mays.



Imagine an outfield with Willie Mays and Ted Williams. Nearly 1200 homeruns hit between those two.

The Red Sox didn't integrate until 1959, 5 years after Brown v. Board, and two years after Jackie Robinson's Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Hell it was a year after Willie O'Ree took the ice for the Bruins as the first black NHL player.



And while other teams benefited from wider pools of talent to draw from (the Indians won the World Series in 1948 with an integrated team, the Dodgers won 6 pennants with Jackie Robinson), the Red Sox limited their own success by limiting their hiring.

But sticking with baseball, could you imagine a rule that required all teams to have at least one black player? How about in football, imagine a rule that required at least 1 QB to be black, at least 1 WR to be white, at least 1 O-lineman to be black, at least 1 CB to be white, and at least 1 coach/coordinator to be black?

Sports are the ultimate meritocracy. Race doesn't matter. If you're good, you can get away with murder.



But if there are no quotas, and no affirmative action in sports, why is there affirmative action in fire departments and police forces? In law schools and teaching schools? In the military?

Here's an interesting hypothetical metaphor from the same site I sited above:

Suppose that [there] is a track officials judging two athletes running a hundred yard dash. Before the official shoots off the starting pistol, one runner kicks the other in the shin, stomps on his toes, and then runs ahead fifty yards. Now because our official is observant, he sees this dirty play and immediately halts the race. So, he walks over to the runner, who is fifty yards ahead and tells him that what he did was unfair and wrong and he is forbidden from doing it again. Then he goes back to check on the runner at the starting line. The runner is a little bruised up. The official tells him "Don't worry I saw everything that happened. I told the other runner that what he did was wrong and that he shouldn't have done it. As I speak the rules are being changed to outlaw such actions from ever happening again." Then the official strolls back to his position and fires the starting pistol to begin the race, where the runners left off...

The race has already been tainted. It is our duty to somehow reconstruct the situation so that fairness can again pervade the event. At the very least we must allow the injured runner time to heal and then advance him fifty yards to be even with his competition. We must actively deconstruct the advantages. If we do not, we violate our own rules of fairness, preserving the advantages of one runner over the other.

Just to expand on this metaphor, suppose the cheating runner has kids, and the cheated runner has kids. Is it right to actively punish the children of the cheater and give a head-start to the children of the cheated?

Or is it right to punish the ENTIRE ETHNICITY of the cheating runner for what he did?

And how can one reconstruct the 100 yard dash IMMEDIATELY, which is what affirmative action is supposed to do: quickly remedy the problems created by historical racial discrimination. The cheated runner needs TIME to heal. In fact, the worse the injury, the more TIME it will take to heal. So the worse the historical discrimination, the more TIME it will take to be remedied.

If the cheated runner has a broken foot, it's impossible to give him a proper head start, or give the cheating runner a proper punishment that will result in a fair race. What's done is done.

Remember my analogy about putting a broken egg back together? And do you recall the story of Humpty Dumpty? All the King's horses, all the King's men not being able to put him back together? It's a common liberal trait to believe that government intervention can solve everything, even the unsolvable.



Affirmative action is an overly optimistic liberal notion that the past can be undone. That millions of injustices committed by long-dead people against other long-dead people can be rectified by government policy.

It'd be nice if that were possible. But it's not.

And then there's the victims of affirmative action. Liberals are ever so quick to point out the beneficiaries. Judge Sotomayor even claimed to be one. But for every person helped by affirmative action, doesn't there have to be someone hurt? If Sotomayor got into Yale because of her ethnicity, doesn't that mean someone was rejected based on theirs? Is THAT fair? Is it American?

It's a form of racial socialism.

Until 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board, Blacks were legally pushed to the margin of society where many were left to dwell in poverty and powerlessness. The Brown decision removed the legal impediments that had so long kept Blacks in the impoverished peripheral. Despite this long awaited victory for Black Americans, the historic decision failed to provide adequate means for the deconstruction of white dominance and privilege. It merely allowed Blacks to enter the arena of competition. This recognized and established the status quo (white wealth and Black indigence, white employment and Black unemployment, white opportunity and Black disenfranchisement) as an acceptable and neutral baseline. Without the deconstruction of white power and privilege how can we legitimately claim that the playing field is level? Does it not seem more logical, and indeed fairer and more just, to actively deconstruct white privilege, rather than let it exist through hegemony?

"Actively deconstruct white privilege?" That's a lofty and frightening goal. To belittle my personal accomplishments based on my whiteness and my privilege offends me. Certainly both helped, but I graduated from college, not my race. I got a 1400 on my SAT, not my economic status.

Is there anyone or any group in the universe wise enough to determine which of my accomplishments are due to my "white privilege" and which are due to just myself?



How do we separate those whites who "deserve" to be rich and powerful, from those who simply inherited theirs from centuries of discrimination and hatred? Again, more lofty liberal uberoptimism. Such a task is impossible. Moreover, it's not even worth attempting to carry out. Failure in this task is inevitable due to its impossibility. And any failure simply results in more harm and misleveling of that proverbial playing field.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Two discriminations don't lead to equality.

Miss California vs. Barack Obama vs. Dick Cheney

Miss California will be stripped of her crown, title, and duties. (Duties?) I don't care and neither should you.

But do you remember the whole Miss California debacle? She answered a question as part of the Miss USA pageant about gay marriage and became public enemy #1 for people like Perez Hilton and others.

I've gotten so good at tuning out meaningless media drivel that I never even heard what she actually said until my curiosity peaked a few minutes ago.



Kind of reminded me when some guy defined marriage in another superficial competition:



Eerie how similar their views on gay marriage are. Scary how differently they were treated. One was asked a political question in a beauty pageant, told the truth, and was vilified. One was asked a political question in a political pageant, told the truth, and it was ignored.

Loyal readers of this blog know how I feel about gay marriage:

Lone Star Tyranny
Iowa is More Progressive than California?

To sum up, I think two consenting, unrelated, and unmarried adults have the right to marry each other, regardless of gender. Marriage is a familial acquisition (in other words, a legal contract that makes two unrelated people part of each other's family). If a man wants to add a man to his family, then that's his right.

But lots of people don't like that idea. And as much as I disagree with them, I'm not going to HATE someone just for that.

But if I did hate someone just for disagreeing with me on one issue, I'd hate EVERYONE who disagreed with me on that issue. I wouldn't go after Miss California, then give Barack a pass just cuz he's so gosh darn loveable.

And where is the liberal criticism of Barack on this issue? Why can't they try to cajole him on this one issue if it's so important to them? Because for many liberals, it is an ancillary issue. They use the gay marriage issue to vilify conservatives as bigots. Hell, how much flak did Sarah Palin take for her quotes on gay marriage?

Then after they use the old "conservative=bigot" tactic, they shelve the issue until the next election. So Barack gets a free pass.

And Dick Cheney's stance on gay marriage gets swept under the rug:



Wow, this is friggin Darth Cheney here. And in this one issue, he's LEFT of Barack. Wow!

The 800 Billion Pound Elephant in the Room

There's a hidden tax you've been paying. Barack and his cronies will go on CNN and claim that they've lowered taxes for most Americans. And technically they're correct. But you're still paying for all this government spending, just in a roundabout way.

You feel it at the gas station. Gasoline prices have soared in 2008. Why? Because oil prices have soared.



But why have oil prices soared? Demand is stable. Supply hasn't changed. So why is the price going up?

THE DOLLAR.



Oil is traded in dollars. Everyone in the world buys and sells oil with dollars. And the value of the dollar has steadily decreased the past few months, as more and more dollars are printed by the US government in an effort to pay for all the spending.

So for other countries, buying oil costs about the same in their own currency, as they get more dollars for their Pounds, Euros, Yen, and Yuan.

This is a bit simplistic: $1 is worth a percentage of the US economy. It's almost like a share of stock. So the more dollars out there, the smaller percentage each one represents, and the less it's worth. Furthermore, the US economy has shrunk at a pretty steady clip, and will likely continue to shrink slowly but surely.

Demand for US dollars is going down. Supply of them is going up. So the $500 in my bank account today will be able to buy $499.999999 worth of stuff tomorrow. It's slow, but it can get faster. In Zimbabwe, their hyperinflation reached an annual rate of 231 million percent.



CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli concocted a great metaphor for inflation. I semi-quote: "If I stick a hose into your basement window and turn it on, and you sit in your living room, just because you don't feel the water yet, doesn't mean your house isn't flooding."

Inflation is the worst thing in the world. And this unrestrained spendfest is a potential cause of inflation. Inflation can cripple an economy, and tends to lead to civil unrest and even revolution (See: Germany, 1920s and 30s).



Now every time the subject is broached to one of Barack's talking heads, or the man himself, the first part of their answer is invariably "We inherited this problem."

Whoever is elected President or Führer in 2016 should learn from Barack. Not learn about his economic policies, or his defense policies. But he should learn how to start every answer with "We inherited so many problems from the previous regime." Because it will be the truth.

Government Motors

The free market is a wondrous thing. A market has no morals. It's blind and brutal, but it's not debatable. If a restaurant doesn't make money, it goes out of business. If a person has no skills, they lose their job. There are winners, there are losers, but when the market is allowed to divide the two, there's not much that can be said.

A free market is like a sporting event. And the new brand of quasi-socialism the government is now practicing is like the Oscars. The Steelers won the Super Bowl because they scored more points than the Cardinals. On the other hand, Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture because some nontransparent committee decided it was the best. Who decided that? What criteria was used?

See the difference? There's no debating the Steelers are the champs. But Slumdog Millionaire being the best? That debate is quite literally endless.

I own General Motors now. I don't want to. But We The People are now owners of General Motors. And we'll have to "invest" AT LEAST $50 billion of our tax dollars in order to resuscitate it.



If the free market were allowed to do its dirty work, General Motors would be wiped off the face of the planet. All those auto workers in Michigan and Ohio would lose their jobs. As would those auto workers in Mexico and Canada who do a hefty portion of GM's manufacturing. And then GM's parts suppliers would go bust. So industry in the Midwest takes a big hit, unemployment dramatically increases, and shit hits the fan.



But hang on a minute. The government seems to think that GM can be resurrected and in 4 or 5 years, it can become profitable. And that's why we're putting tons of money into it, so it can be reborn and eventually pay us back.

If this is true, that GM can make a comeback, then why do anything at all? Instead of forcing the comeback, why not let it die and be reborn naturally via private sector investment? Or let another car company, like Ford or Toyota, take over GM's territory in the market?

If GM, or another entity, can regenerate Midwestern industry in 4 or 5 years, it will be able to do it ON ITS OWN. If no entity or entities can do this, then a GM supported by the government will also be destined to fail.

To simplify: you own a bar. The bar goes out of business. If a bar or some other business can be profitable in that location, it will be. Someone with money to invest will open a bar, or a restaurant, and will either succeed or fail.

The other alternative is that the government invests in the bar. If the bar succeeds, then it would have succeeded with private investment anyway, so government intervention was meaningless. If the bar fails, the government loses money.

How come the government didn't save Boston Billiard Club? They had some fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine bartenders.



It's a no-win scenario when government invests in private businesses or industry in an effort to save them. Because if the government does win, the private business (or some form of it) would have won anyway.



And before you counterargue by citing the bank bailouts, banks are banks because they have cashflow. The credit crunch occurred and they couldn't get cash. Without cash, banks freeze and can't do business. The bailouts weren't a loan to failing companies, they were fiscal lubricants applied to a grinding part in order to allow the larger machine to move with ease.



Then you get to the United Auto Workers. It's funny. The tone of the conversation might change if instead of calling them workers, we called them voters. Instead of saying "3 million workers' jobs were saved" let's say "3 million voters' jobs were saved." Barack won Ohio by less than 300,000 votes. How many auto worker/voters are in Ohio? Curious.



The UAW took some concessions in the GM bankruptcy. Like they can;t get Viagra or Cialis from the corporate health plan. They maintain their base pay, and there's been a minimal reduction in benefits. They won't get tuition assistance for their kids' schooling for 1 year. Cue a violin.

WHAT THE FUCK? No reduction in base pay???

I wouldn't care, except I OWN GENERAL MOTORS NOW!!! Why do these people get paid the same when a replacement could be hired (especially in this dry jobs market) for half the fucking pay???

Again, I wouldn't care if it weren't my money. If some company wants to pay a worker $60,000 when they could pay them $30,000, go right ahead. But when that worker is getting paychecks that come out of my pocket, I'm going to stand up for myself.

And how come successful car dealerships, like Westminster Dodge in Westminster, MA are getting forced to close their doors, yet these UAW fuckos are getting to keep the same base pay?

This is anti-market-morality. Successes are losing their jobs, failures are keeping theirs. Thanks, Barack. Could you imagine being in a school where the A students were held back and the F students skipped a grade?



And where does this $50 billion come from? Obviously from us. Well, kind of. Most of it will probably come from the upper class and business tax hikes the Democrats are pushing. Sounds great, right? Steal from the rich, give to the poor.



Nothing wrong with that, right? Except, the money taxed from those rich fat cats would have been invested in some other business. You know, a business that had a track record of success. Or the money would go to pay a maid, or buy a yacht, or import caviar. But importing caviar gives a job to the caviar importer. Buying a yacht gives a job to the yacht crew, as well as the dock workers where the yacht is anchored, as well as the people who made the yacht. And hiring a maid is pretty explanatory as a job creation.



Even if a rich guy just puts their money in the bank, that money gets loaned out to others.

So instead of letting people WHO KNOW THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO WITH MONEY spend and invest their money, the government (WHICH DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MONEY) takes it, throws it into a company that's already gone bankrupt, and is paying workers more than what they're worth.

That's great, that's super. So instead of moving on with our economic lives, acknowledging the mistakes of companies like General Motors, we're trying to raise the dead. Instead of letting people spend and invest their own money, we're taking it from them and throwing it into a welfare company just so voters in swing states keep their jobs and vote Democratic in 2010 and 2012.

I think I'm going to move to China in order to live in a capitalist country.



Bling bling.