Random Thoughts

Pause, reflect

I am really looking forward to the day when this woman will be out of a job.

It’s one thing to be a hypocrite. It’s one thing to lie. But to be a lying, in your face, serious as a heart attack hypocrite takes some kind of evil skill I can’t even fathom.

“We’re not in a big rush” on health care, Pelosi said. “Pause, reflect.”

I read that, and I almost had an out-of-body experience. Like I was suddenly set down on another planet. Because this is the woman who has been shoving universal health care down America’s collective throat like there is no tomorrow.

August 2009:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed on Wednesday to push through the government-sponsored health care program that the late Ted Kennedy characterized as his life’s work. “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” Pelosi said in a statement.

October 2009

“Leaders of all political parties starting over a century ago with President Theodore Roosevelt have called and fought for health care reform and health insurance reform,” Pelosi said. “Today we are about to deliver on the promise.”

December 2009

“We would do almost anything if it meant we would pass health care for all Americans (by) the Christmas holidays,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday. “Maybe we can’t,” she said, in which case Congress could deliver “a New Year’s present for the American people.”

6 January 2010

Lawmakers are “very close” to resolving differences between the House and Senate health care bills and sending a final version to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.

And now she says “not a big rush,” and “pause, reflect.” I suppose the stunning failure of Democrats to hang on to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat wouldn’t have anything to do with Ms. Pelosi’s dramatic change of attitude. Not that she’s capable of understanding what Massachusetts’ voters decision represents,

“Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too,” Pelosi said, referring to the state’s health care program. “So we don’t [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should.”

It’s not complicated, Ms. Pelosi. Americans simply don’t want to pay for universal health care.

We can only hope that this is an epic fail for what has to be the worst bill in the history of US government.

Right voices thinks it could be the beginning of the end for Pelosi.

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit calls it a quagmire.

And Instapundit…oh jeeze, it hurts to laugh this hard.

Could we Californians hope for a Barbara Boxer reelection loss? American Power thinks so. Oh, be still my heart.

God’s partner in matters of life and death

This morning I took Youngest Son to his new middle school for the first time. Dropped him off, watched him walk confidently away. The sun was shining in a cloudless blue sky (it’s SoCal and this is normal August weather). I was feeling pretty good about the day.

I got home, checked my email and found that I’d sold another of Youngest Daughter’s last semester textbooks on half.com. Wonderful system, half.com; I’ve saved literally hundreds of dollars each semester in textbook costs and resold most of the books I’ve bought. The day was really looking good.

Then I read this:

In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the President told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream.

Well there went my happy morning. On a certain level the arrogance of Obama’s statement engenders cynical laughter. So, if he’s “God’s partner in matters of life and death,” did God have a vote when it came to Obama’s support of Planned Parenthood, and his refusal to vote against partial birth abortion? Just wondering.

God’s partner in matters of life and death…

Far more than laughter though, Obama’s declaration of partnership with God in “matters of life and death” makes me feel rather ill. That deep-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach something-is-horribly-wrong-here sort of ill. There is no end to the man’s profound arrogance, no limit to the power he presumes, even to take on equality with God in “matters of life and death.” He’s not Jesus Christ, he thinks he’s more powerful than Jesus Christ. Christ himself “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Servanthood eludes this particular public servant though, and Obama calls himself God’s own partner in determining mortality.

At least this clarifies one persistent question about Obamacare: Obama thinks matters of life and death ought to be in the hands of the government. And that speaks volumes about the murky mystery that is his health care reform plan.

For further consideration:

Victor Davis Hansen explains the rather creepy and sudden invocation of religion in the health care debate (H/T The Anchoress).

Neo-Neocon provides an eloquent and thorough examination of the problem with health care reform:

These are some of the very basic problems with any health care reform bill:

(1) Good health care is extremely expensive, and cutting costs will always mean denial of benefits. And even if the rhetoric says that only the unnecessary fat will be cut, medicine is not a good enough science that we can tell in advance what’s a necessary test or procedure and what is not.

(2) People logically assume that insuring everyone will have to cost more money, and they also know that there’s no magic way to get that money. People are also aware that government estimates of the cost of programs are usually underestimates, sometimes by a large factor.

(3) People are especially wary of government control over this particular aspect of their lives because it is so personal and so vital at the same time.

(4) Government-run enterprises are generally distrusted, and considered inefficient and intrusive. People know that from past and present experience.

(5) In this country there is still a widely-held philosophical strain of belief in personal initiative and responsibility rather than nanny-statism. This is in contrast to the belief system of European populations, and so it’s no surprise that European governments have encountered far less resistance to government involvement in health care than is found in this country.

Therefore it’s no surprise that the US has failed to pass universal health care so far, and especially a public option. And it’s also no surprise that there’s been a great deal lot of opposition to Obamacare, since the basic problems presented by the five points above have been compounded by the fact that the rhetoric of those pushing the bill has been entirely unconvincing in its attempts at reassurance.

And Richard Bean sums up the underlying problem with Obama’s entire approach to health care:

This fantasy–that the government will take away all our worries and pay for everything–is the result of years of the entitlement mentality that is sponsored by liberalism. It takes only a few glances at history to see where socialism leads. The shiny allure of handing over your life to be paid for by others has never led a society to greatness or goodness. It has led to a decay in morality, productivity, responsibility, and most importantly a decay in freedom.

My dead grandma, and the everpresent O

Welcome to Build a Straw Man Argument 101. At the lectern today is Professor Obama.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Now, it’s personal. President Barack Obama invoked his own anguish over the death of a loved one as he challenged the debunked notion that Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care would include “death panels.” “I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that,” an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.”

My father died of cancer too. It was a painful, heartwrenching experience to watch him “deterorite” as well, Mr. President. Nice appeal to pity though. And your point is…?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think–I doubt anyone does–that Obama ran for public office in order to off granny. I think he did it because his ego compelled him to do it. The same reason he has his own special logo to slap on everything he pushes; the Presidential seal used by so many other ordinary men before him just isn’t enough. I can’t recall any other politician continuing to use a campaign logo after they’d taken office, much less a sitting president. Maybe this is just part of all that “change.”

I know that Rush Limbaugh made the comparision, but I could not figure out what the caduceus had to do with the Third Reich, until I went looking. It IS an unfortunate image to parallel, but hey, it looks like what it looks like.

The caduceus, a symbol typically used in North America to represent medicine:

The Reichsadler, a symbol of Nazi Germany (throughout Europe stone versions of these with the swastika chiseled away still remain on buildings):

How Obama chooses to brand his health care plan:

Perhaps Obama ought to ditch the O marketing graphic already, ’cause it is not helping. He surely does have a penchant for altering seals that really ought to be left alone. You’d think he would have learned back in Chicago in ‘08.

The reason I’m harping on visual images, and the ego that underlies them, is that this man’s ego matters. It matters a lot. It is the impelling force behind his actions (ego drives every one of us to some extent). Balanced by wisdom, a healthy ego can make for good leadership.

I’m waiting for evidence of wisdom, because thus far it has been sadly wanting. Neo-neocon presents a starkly revealing illustration of the lack of wisdom inherent in Obama presuming to lecture on health care reform:

…in thinking about Obama and the amputation remarks, there’s a great deal more that’s troubling in what he said. His statement was part of a tendency of his to speak out authoritatively on matters about which he knows nothing or almost nothing.

One of the most off-putting things about Obama is his arrogance. And it’s not just a personal arrogance, it’s an intellectual arrogance as well. The most dangerous ignorance is the ignorance of a person who doesn’t know what he/she doesn’t know. And it’s even more dangerous when someone who fits that description—Barack Obama—is in a position of great power and filled with the righteousness of his cause, as well as the ruthlessness of the true believer.

…It’s clear that Obama’s statement about diabetic care is riddled with difficulties, some of them obvious and some of them only emerging after deeper reflection. Are Obama’s critical thinking skills really that poor? Is his judgment that bad? Is his grasp of these really rather elementary concepts that weak? Or is it that he just cannot stop lying to the American people in order to attempt to reach his health care reform goals?

I think that the answer is “Yes” to all of the above. I also think this is becoming clearer with each month the man is in office. It is going to be a long four years indeed.