Lets play connect the dots...

From Barack Obama 7-16-2009:

“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Ok, so your only really talking about the 40+ million of uninsured Americans getting on board with this plan then, right? I mean this has nothing to do with the majority of the population already happy with their healthcare, right? Something just doesnt sit right with this, lets think about this in broad terms.


According to Healthcarevoices.org:

U.S. employers have been shifting costs to workers: workers’ payments toward premiums have more than doubled since 2000. Or, the employers drop coverage altogether: the number of employers offering health insurance has dropped from 69 percent to 60 percent in the same eight-year period

Why the push the cost onto their employees?

The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,700 in 2008. Workers contributed nearly $3,400, or 12 percent more than they did in 2007.*Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Now what can we expect in future costs? Here is the last four decades, as we can see, the industry cost wise is expanding and exploding exponentially.

According to The Congressional Budget Office:

Health care will grow from 16% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2007 to 25% in 2025, unless efforts are made to rein in cost growth.

So because the price of Healthcare is exploding exponentially and with the government now increasing the tax burden on business at a time where the economy is on the ropes, is there a better remedy then to have government come in and offer healthcare to all people, freeing business to turn those savings into capital? Of course not and if implemented, not so long after will you see American businesses stop offering healthcare thus pushing everyone on "Obamacare."

Broadly speaking, the difference between Socialism and Fascism are simply who owns the companies. Both are funded by the state, but in a fascist state we do still have private owners of businesses, so rest at ease...at least we wont be socialists.

Yes we can (but do we know we shouldnt?)

Its been just six months and socialized medicine is officially being introduced into the homes of every American as Universal Health care takes stage front and center as this years top priority for the Obama administration. Make no mistake, this is not just a Clintonian like mantra revived to just maintain some political capital leveraged during the ’08 election… this is on its way to becoming reality. The transformation to socialism started long ago, but it really came obvious last year with George W Bush and his corporate bailouts for Wall Street bets went wrong. That was then - this is now and now is seeping into the private lives of every Americans, no doubt a bold and drastic attempt not seen since the days of LBJ. Obamacare has kicked into full throttle as we embark on a descent into uncharted waters of organizational upheaval, encroachments into our private lives but above all: paralyzing debt like we have never seen before.

With the Democrats having carte blanche, everyone knew this type of scenario was possible but for some reason most just chalked it up as lip service. After all, how could we possibly entertain the idea of paying for such a monstrosity as Universal Health care when we already have an entitlement tsunami on the way? A tsunami so large that it threatens to wipe out the budget as we know it, so much so that its estimated by 2030 we could be seeing health care take up 80% of federal expenditures.

First of all the 1 Trillion or 500 billion, whatever the number the Senate decides on from week to week to fund Universal Health care initially will be funded by… your great grandchildren. That’s right, we are still running budget deficits, so therefore we have no money to expand the size and scope of government any more then we have. So what do we do? You borrow it. This means the needed funding will come from money that will be printed and borrowed at interest from the Federal Reserve. Change you can believe in? Hardly.

No doubt that is obviously not sustainable, so with Medicaid spiraling out of control and Social Security on the verge of going bankrupt Universal Health care not only just a bad idea, its not mathematically probable. You would think that with the quagmire we are facing, the federal government would not want to put itself into another situation where even more of your health care is primarily funded by the state. You would think that in an era of record budget deficits and in turn an escalating national debt that is nearing 100% of GDP we would just have to say…”No”.

However, this is not the case. Obviously the ramifications of this measure are monumental and monstrous. And we could beat this topic to death with its obvious encroachments on personal choice and the invasion of privacy with even more detail of the ridiculous cost. Above all this however, I want to focus on just one small problem that gives this idea legs. And that is the premise, laid out by this administration and the people that put him into power. The same people that put back into power one of the most inept congresses (according to polling) that we have ever seen.

Because when your entire platform and political prowess is built upon the phrase “Yes we Can” then you will naturally have a President, his allies and his supporters who will ignore the hurdles and reality of a situation and shoot for the moon. Sure, the idea sounds good, the idea that we can overcome anything we want because we are headstrong to do it. But this isn’t a sporting event. There is no level playing field.

We have bills and fighting fire with gasoline may be a great ‘Bowie hook but its not however a strategy to get out of this train wreck that we are indeed facing. Now here comes the rub. Sixty-six percent of voters that voted for Obama were under the age of 30. Two thirds of his voting bloc was an idealistic population that by nature is incapable of making any sound rational decisions because they for the most part are inexperienced and are disciples of the moment. This is the generation of downloads and hi-speed, the first generation that was born inside the spectacle that is the 24 hours news cycle. Thus the ability to look down the road isn’t something that most of these people are capable of.

It was this population that would elect a man that clearly saw government as the answer not the wild beast that it always becomes. No matter how many times you pat it on the head, government is a rabid infested dog lunging at your throat and in this case your pocketbook and your consciousness. Which, leads me to my point, and let me just say, that irony obviously has a sense of humor.

Its this pie in the sky, idealistic segmentation that was the driving force in getting BO elected who will one day have to deal with carnage and insolvency that is coming as entitlements old and new merge into one death blow that will bring this country to its knees. If things are left "as is" the pain will be great, as stated before. However, if you compound obligations the nightmare will only increase ten fold when we add even more government intervention and responsibility.

Time is ticking and dealing with the past obligations before we undertake new ones is not just good political clout its just common sense. Unfortunately, common sense doesn’t apply to idealism. In fact common sense doesn’t allow it. So, yes we can. We can make the choice, all beit not a sexy one and it wont impact your reelection but it is a choice that must be made because its looking into the future and getting your hands dirty now as opposed to when your sinking. That’s a thought, a government forward looking and not basing its politics on a four year election window? That would be change I could believe in.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell: Friedrich Nietzsche

(sigh) And the song remains the same...

Mark Sanford was becoming a lot of people’s dark horse candidate to run for the highest office in the land in 2012 and that was including myself (save Ron Paul of course). He was young; he was articulate, steadfast on his principals and just had the look of a president. He was the most fiscal conservative in any executive office in the country and he was also a guy with a proven track record and it was one that would be a good elixir for what not only plagues Washington, but government at every level in today’s world of easy credit and pay later (much later) climate. With all that said, last week’s revelation of his secret getaway has pretty much put the saber to the throat of his anticipated entrance into the 2012 election.

Now, if he was a Democrat, the result would be about the same, especially considering the unusual circumstances of his disappearing act. But it always stings a little more if you’re a Republican in this type of scandal, because they happen to be the party who wants to keep things as is, as opposed to how they are becoming. They are the ones who have a strict guideline on whom should and who should not be married.

It’s the Republicans that want to hold their ground on an issue that only pertains to less then 2% of the populous (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). The same can be said about abortion and may other medical and social issues that have no place in the debate at the federal level.

The real problem here lies in this incessant urge for bureaucrats and politicians on either side of the isle to be involved with social engineering at the federal level. It is this behavior, more so then any other is what is responsible for the division that exists in the country today. You have the PC crowd on the left who attempts to strip down the individual thus concentrating more on the unit as a whole, as opposed to the right with their fire and brimstone and close-mindedness on behaviors and issues they simply cannot win on nor stop. This is a key reason why the politics of today and yesterday have ultimately buried the ideas we will need to mine for tomorrow.

Isn’t it about time the Conservatives take a good look at themselves as a whole and become a party of ideas rather then a party of hypocrisy and pettiness? Because when you’re the party that is supposed to represent the “moral majority” and be the one party with a “focus on the family” you better also be walking a tight rope when it comes to the very moral issues you so vehemently speak out against. This is clearly not the case for not only Mark Sanford but for many other Republicans with egg on their face.

Recent history has shown that being one party affiliation or another doesn't shield you away form the enemy that lies in all of us… and that is: to err is human.

This is not the party of Barry Goldwater, therefore something evolved and in doing so something naturally devolved. What has evolved is the social conservatives with their self appointed monopoly on morality. Its no coincidence with the forming of the Focus on the Family (1977) and the Christian Coalition (1987) things began to rapidly change as far as what pillars were worth building and which were worth letting crumble. As these voter driven organizations grew they became heavily intertwined into Republican politics often graying what republicanism actually was.

What had devolved was the commitment to limit spending/ cut taxes and keeping the states off the federal tit and allowing them to govern themselves. Look at NCLB, the Prescription health care plan, and the overall massive increases in spending over the last 30 years. These are hardly ideas that will limit spending.

Oh sure, Republicans still cut taxes, but when you spend as they have, all your really doing is pushing those savings from tax cuts onto future generations who will be required to pay the bills. This is done with all the borrowing which in turn created debt (and subsequent interest) needed to close the gaps on all the budget deficits they ran (I should also mention inflation, which is also taxation). Not Reagan nor Bush 1 or W can claim to be a fiscal conservative and outside of the Congress of ’94, neither can Congress during this time span.

And that is why Republicans find themselves in the mess they are in today. Sure, we could cherry pick names of Republicans involved in scandal over the last twenty years and they might have more cases the Democrats, but that isn’t what really the problem is. The problem lies in the rhetoric.

The Democrats aren’t using the badge of morality as a vehicle to garner votes. They are socially more progressive then their counterparts, and with that stark contrast, they don’t garner the headlines like Republicans when they do have scandal, because after all, they are supposed to be immoral, they are supposed to be the reason for the social decay on the country. They are also not cutting taxes and thus they are expanding government. Thus they are who they say they are. The Republicans, have a serious case of personality disorder, and its no easy fix.

If Republicans are the party of ideas and are really interested in freedom then they must rebuild the pillars of a small government. That means limiting spending and not when it politically convenient to do so (ie when a democrat holds the White House). This also means that freedom also comes with its warts. People are going to make mistakes and people are also not going to want to live exactly how you do or how you expect them to do.

Thus gay marriage or abortion or school prayer can’t be the cornerstone of your voting preference or the platform for election. It does nobody any good for someone to tell them what the sanctity of marriage is and who is allowed to play when they cant follow nor understand sanctity themselves. It also does nobody any good to abort a marriage 2 or 3 times then tell someone else they cant abort a fetus from their own body. Its not only hypocritical it’s also unwinnable. You can’t win votes with these types of debates. It’s a losing battle everytime. Now, if the goal is to NOT win and become a dated relic ala the wigs… then keep the continue.