Back to Basics

Elton John is leading yet another “British Invasion” in America.

He is “invading” American media and pop-culture circles with some very basic – and very healthy – attitudes and behaviors that affirm capitalism and American-styled free market enterprise.

Elton may seem like an unlikely spokesperson for such a noble agenda. Yet many of America’s most basic understandings of freedom and economic liberty are grounded in the words of another Brit – Adam Smith – whose magnum opus “The Wealth of Nations” was first published in the historically significant year of 1776.

So it’s amusing to consider that the Brit who seems to have been celebrating America’s 1976 bicentennial with the song “Philadelphia Freedom” (it sounded like a “bicentennial song” although in truth it was written about Billie Jean King’s professional tennis team the “Philadelphia Freedoms”), might be subtly awakening Americans today with some of the very basic, very “human” considerations of free market economics.

No matter, Elton’s attitude towards free-market enterprise can’t soon enough break-out all across the country, especially given the hostility to such things at the White House, and in the Congress.

In June, many in the media marveled at Elton’s “willingness” to perform at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding reception. People Magazine noted that Rush is a “conservative radio commentator” – which I suspect was People’s way of describing Rush in both a truncated, and intentionally pejorative fashion. Elton, on the other hand, was characterized in the same article as merely an “outspoken gay civil union advocate” (another fine way to truncate the accomplishments of yet another very talented person).

And now, in the midst of President Obama singling out and maligning and suing Arizona – along with some of Obama’s adoring fans among the ranks of artists and entertainers choosing to “boycott” Arizona -Elton has “broken with the crowd” yet again. Refusing to bow to such whims, Elton upheld his commitment to play his scheduled July 22nd concert date, and performed at Southern Arizona’s Tucson Arena.

After Clinton appointed Judge Susan Bolton ruled Wednesday that — for all intents and purposes — Arizona does not have the right to protect itself or its citizens from invading drug cartels and the illegal foreign hordes that are bleeding it dry of its resources, it should have become apparent to even the dimmest that We-the-People no longer exist. We are now living under a tyranny developed, directed, implemented and enforced by the Marxists in power.

To add insult to injury, as The Obama and its minions refuse to enforce the invasion of a foreign power from assaulting OUR border and willfully and with malice refusing to protect US citizens, Hezbollah terrorists who have already invaded with blessings from The Obama will be allowed to continue to do so.

With this latest atrocity perpetrated by the US Federal government against We-the-People, isn’t it time to at least consider replacing the Federal government with something that works for us instead of against us? That is, assuming we citizens (almost serfs) still have any choice at all. Isn’t it time to give back the power to the United States? With its bought and paid for leftist judges, election fraud and openly racist units, The Obama and is now being given Carte Blanche to do anything he wants to control and destroy We-the-People and what used to be our country. Not even a provable US citizen, The Obama and his masters are the worst things to have ever invaded the United States of America; a USA that has now been destroyed. No more a Republic, Judge Bolton has also now ruled that States have NO right to their own sovereignty.

The Republic may have now come to its end, folks. Obama can now cheer and have another wild and extravagantly expensive party on the backs of We-the-People. Who would have thought we would be totally destroyed by a foreign power called Obama? Oh yeah! Our founders did when they incorporated Article II into the US Constitution, which reads: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President…” They may not have known The Obama’s name but they knew — if given the chance — what it would do. It has now done it.

Judge Blocks Key Parts of Immigration Law in Arizona:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29arizona.html

Hezbollah incursions and invasion:
http://forum.pafoa.org/national-11/103958-congresswoman-raises-red-flag-hezbollah-cartel-nexus-u-s-border.html

US Constitution, Article II:
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii

Bob Ewing of the Institute for Justice has a must-read, true-life tale of how Big Labor educrats killed the D.C. school choice program.

In a nutshell, the teacher unions bought off politicians to kill a program that improved the fortunes of thousands of the poorest kids in DC:

-The program saved taxpayers millions of dollars

-Rigorous studies by the Department of Education showed the program was a huge success, improving academic performance as well as the chance that kids would graduate

-Parents loved it: Four applications were filled out for every spot available

-The teachers unions bought off politicians to help themselves at the expense of thousands of the poorest kids in DC

-If the politicians that exercise school choice themselves voted to save this school choice program, it would have been saved

-90 percent of the kids forced out of the program were reassigned to failing public schools

It’s criminal educational malpractice and, as Ewing put it, the “education debacle of the decade.”

In today’s mail I got this very official looking envelope from the Department of Health & Human Services, complete with a note above my name and address stating, “Important Information from Medicare. (But also the Spanish version; I couldn’t find the French, Greek or even the Muslim version) Informacion Importante de Medicare.”  How nice of them to waste my tax dollars to add that importante note in Spanish when the English version is almost perfectly identical.  Even a liberal could understand the English version.

But I guess this is the Obama and company idea of letting us know that they are pushing for more Spanish illegal aliens who haven’t a clue or scintilla of the English language (except when they want to protest or sue some Americano.)  What’s next?  Farsi?

However, getting back to the mail I received from the illustrious Madam Secretary Kathleen Sebelius telling me what a lucky guy I am that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) passed by Congress (with the help of some turncoat Blue Dog Democrats who were “bought” off) and signed by President Obama that will “provide you and your family greater savings and increased quality health care.”

That’s interesting in that so many others are saying just the opposite – that the new health law will cost more money and a great deterioration in health care quality, even the Congressional Budget Office.  But hey, what’s a little fib between friends, right?  We forgive you Kate; we know who you work for, and his truth-telling is also very suspicious and rare.

Well, this brochure that came in the official envelope was a four-page, glossy paper in full color and was just full of so many gushy and wonderful things that it almost made me forget that when this bunch also get the Congress to vote to give somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 million non-insured, by choice and not by choice, along with free coverage for untold millions of illegal aliens who are in this county illegally and have broken our laws to get here, there won’t be enough doctors or other medical personnel to treat all of us.

Every country in the world that has this gem of socialism for their medical care has waiting lines and lengthy times for extensive treatments to the point that those country’s citizens have been coming to America to get medical care.  So how is all that going to help us?

“The law increases the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and physician assistants…”

Probably the most deceitful or deceptive statement in the brochure says: “The guaranteed Medicare benefits you currently receive will remain the same.”  If you believe that than you will probably also believe it when they say: “The law increases the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and physician assistants…”

We keep hearing and reading that we already have a shortage of these medical types and also that many doctors are just going to opt out of the profession due to the many negative factors they face in this law. (See NCPA article below.)  Do you want to be treated by a medic that was rushed through medical school and training?  That will be a big help, won’t it?

Illegal aliens in Arizona don’t like the new law that requires police officers to question the immigration status of individuals they reasonably suspect might be illegal aliens, and some are leaving.

Other cities and states don’t like it either. I’ve come up with a brilliant idea: let’s raise money to help Arizona’s illegal aliens leave the state to set up house in cities that have passed or are considering boycott resolutions against Arizona. The list of cities includes San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Austin, Texas (in time for SXSW 2011!), Boston, the nation’s capital, New York City, and Hartford, Connecticut.

We’ll raise funds to send Arizona’s illegals by train, plane, or bus, to a boycotting city—and only a boycotting city—of their choice. Look here…I’ve got my $100 bill ready.

Update: By the way, I’m being sarcastic! I want illegal aliens to leave the country, not just Arizona.

The underlying narrative of just about every liberal attack on Israel has been this. Defending yourself only makes us hate you more. This cynical sleight of hand is of course an old trick used by bigots to inhibit their targets from daring to fight back. And liberals have made it their weapon of choice when going after Jews and Israel.

The tactic works by criminalizing any attempt at a defense by the target, and making the defense itself part of the indictment. The goal is to impose a Catch 22 framework on Jews with the only way out being to agree and participate in the indictment of Israel. The defense itself is then incorporated into the bigot’s narrative. A 100 years ago, Jews would be charged with being “Pushy” and any defense against pushiness would itself be construed as pushy. Thus attempting to defend yourself would itself be an indictment proving the case already made against you. Similarly Israel is charged with defending itself too strongly. Anytime Israel defends itself in any way, it is automatically then proven guilty of defending itself. Liberal bigotry against Israel is not simply a charge immune to any defense, it is a charge which incorporates any defense as proof of the truth of the original accusation. Self-defense itself becomes the crime.

Playing this game allows liberals to express antisemitic ideas and beliefs while blaming Israel and the Jews for making them feel that way. A liberal bigot will explain that he is a reasonable person, but that Israel and those Jews who defend it are causing him to hate them. Speaking the truth about the situation only inspires more vitriol, as the bigot warns his target that defending Israel is itself hateful, and will cause him to hate even more. The target is then left with the choice of joining with the “Good Jews” who agree with the bigot, or becoming one of the “Bad Jews” who believes that his people have rights. As one of the “Good Jews”, the target is then expected to join in the Jewbaiting. And as one of the “Bad Jews”, he or she is now expected to shoulder responsibility for the liberal’s bigotry. Catch 22. Either way the liberal bigot wins.

The use of such a tactic displays not only liberal hypocrisy on bigotry, but demonstrates their ability to exploit the social insecurities of a minority to prevent them from exercising their political and civil rights. No wonder then that so many liberal Jews who do support Israel’s right to exist are complaining that they are tried of being expected to constantly defend Israel. Because that is exactly what the left wants to accomplish.

The same tactic has been quite effectively used against Israel. Each time Israel defends itself against Islamic terrorists, it is warned that defending itself will only inspire more hatred. And so it scales down its self-defense. It abandons defensible borders. It gives over land to terrorists. It reduces itself to naval patrol and a defensive wall. And yet each time, the same hateful shriek follows in its wake. “Don’t you know that defending yourself only makes us hate you more.”

When an Israeli comedy website produced a parody of the hysterical attacks on Israel, titled, “We Con the World“, the liberal bigots rushed to warn us that we were only causing them to hate us more. Both the Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan featured the video, and condemned Jews for daring to make a production mocking the lies being directed at Israel. An AlterNet blogger triumphantly announced that the video was just making people hate Israel even more. Which of course is as always the point. Because liberals have to justify their bigotry, by using the refusal of their target to just lie down and take it, as their justification. And so the balance swings right back to, “Defending yourself only makes us hate you more.”

When Israeli sent out soldiers with paintball guns against terrorists with knives, the liberal bigots were outraged that the soldiers eventually defended themselves. When video after video was released telling the truth, the liberal bigots were outraged because Israel was providing fact based evidence that demonstrated just what kind of ugliness they had gotten into bed with. Each phase inevitably drove the liberal bigots to become more outraged at Israel’s gall for actually defending itself, instead of apologizing and agreeing to turn Gaza into a Hamas state with a convenient Iranian port perfect for shipping missiles or any other weapons to their genocidal terrorist allies.

Like most bullies, the liberal bigot is self-righteously angry at the thought of his victim daring to offer any kind of defense. The combination of ideology and bigotry work to reinforce a sense of rightness in playing the old game of “Beat the Jew”. Being liberals, they do make a point of trotting out Jews to do at least some of the beating. This makes it look less like bigotry, and more like infighting. Of course this isn’t exactly an original gimmick. The man who presided over the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Spain in the 15th century was himself Jewish. In the early days of the USSR, the Communist Party employed the Yevsektsiya (the Jewish Section) to shut down synagogues, terrorized Jews and helped the NKVD murder Rabbis and Zionists. And even Pharaoh had his Jewish taskmasters and the Nazis their Kapos. As liberals themselves are so fond of pointing out when challenging the feminist bona fides of a Sarah Palin or the legitimacy of black conservatives, it is not genetics or biology, but the willingness to fight for the interests of a group that gives one claim to be a legitimate representative of that group. There is no conceivable argument for the likes of M.J. Rosenberg or Glenn Greenwald meeting such a test. Not now. Not ever.

As I have written in the past, liberal anti-Zionism is actually poorly camouflaged anti-Semitism. It is based on the denial of Jewish national rights, which itself has roots in a Voltairesque disdain for the Bible and the Jews by association with it. The socialist approach has been that Jews ought to dissolve into the mass of humanity and cease to exist. Israel was based on a rejection of that approach. And that alone has won it an incredible amount of enmity. A continuing Jewish identity represents an implicit rejection of the secular messianism that has defined left wing movements since the French Revolution. The destruction of the Jews continues to be associated with the destruction of the old order. But where liberals once believed that removing the ghettos and legal barriers to civic participation would do the job for them, Israel has come to represent an obstacle to their agenda.

By now it should be no surprise that many of those driving the Tea Party movement are conservatives who’ve fled the Republican party in response to the party’s abandonment of conservative values and principles.

Prior to this “great awakening,” conservatives assumed that the Grand Old Party (GOP) was championing the tenants of smaller government, lower taxes, and greater personal freedom. In truth, the GOP was more concerned about winning elections than holding strong to its founding principles–so much so that they often elected candidates whose beliefs were more in line with the Democratic party than their own.

It’s been well over a year since the first Tea Party signs started popping up all across the country; and of course, the GOP now says they too are in favor of smaller government, lower taxes, and greater personal freedom. But are they really?

In California, our first opportunity to answer this question will be during the Republican primary election for US Senate as it is the only high profile race that offers a real choice between a constitutional conservative, Chuck DeVore, and two so-called moderates, Tom Campbell and Carly Fiorina.

If the GOP plans to continue mimicking the Democratic party in hopes of drawing in more liberal voters, they will be well served by electing either Campbell or Fiorina. Both candidates have expressed their approval of the Wall Street Bailout, Cap-n-Trade, and the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor. Campbell is for gay marriage, abortion rights, and stricter gun control laws. Fiorina is for the stimulus package, taxation of the Internet, and limiting free speech. In many cases, Campbell and Fiorina’s views are so in line with the incumbent Democratic candidate Barbara Boxer that at times it is difficult to tell the three of them apart.

If, on the other hand, the GOP has learned from its past mistakes in electing Republicans in name only (a.k.a. RINOs), they will be much better served nominating Chuck DeVore as their candidate for US Senate. DeVore’s political views are in stark contrast to not only his opponents in the primary on the aforementioned issues but to Boxer as well. DeVore is the perfect candidate for those voters who know that the Republican primary election isn’t about unseating Boxer or even the Democratic party so much as it’s about unseating the political ideology that is drowning our country in massive debt, entitlements, and regulations.

Come Thursday, June 8th, we will know exactly where the priorities lie for Republican voters in California. So, don’t forget to vote.

Did I miss something in the new health care reform proposals?  When did the democrats’ proposals provide free office visits, free medications and free medical procedures to everyone?

I recently had a conversation with a friend that has a pre-existing medical condition and is very concerned about being able to obtain affordable health insurance.  He is currently insured and is paying what I would consider a very reasonable price for his monthly premiums (less than $200/month).  He must also take medications that run about $2000 per year.  Understandably he is concerned about health care issues.  He indicated a friend of his is on some government insurance plan (he didn’t specify which one) and that this friend is able to obtain all of his medical and dental treatments and medications at no cost to him.

It seems that some people in favor of the democrats government run proposals are assuming that this health care is somehow not going to cost them anything, other than maybe a monthly insurance premium.  They assume the cost of office visits, medical treatments, medications and dental services are going to be provided free of charge.

I read H.R. 3200 and have heard the reviews on the Baucus bill.  Nowhere would I interpret these bills as providing free medical and dental treatments for all, with the only obligation being a monthly insurance premium.  People with certain income levels could qualify for government assistance in paying for the monthly premiums and co-pays, but it certainly did not come with a free price tag.  In fact, I read some reviews on the Baucus bill indicating the co-pays and other costs the consumers would have to pay would actually make health care less affordable to middle-class Americans.

Until the health care reform became an issue, I assumed that once someone retired and was on Medicare that those medical premiums would also be free.  I found out otherwise when talking to my parents.  When on Medicare after you retire you pay a monthly insurance premium, which is taken out of your Social Security check to cover your Medicare health insurance.  Further, you continue have out-of-pocket expenses, like cost-sharing, for medical treatments received.  If you are on the government medication system you also continue paying a portion of the medication.  My grandmother was paying out of her own pocket $1200 a year for her medication and she was on Medicare and had a secondary medical insurance policy.

So you have to wonder if those in favor of the government health care actually understand the consequences of the program.  The government program would not be a free system – you will be paying for premiums, co-pays, and cost-sharing.  You will further be paying to supplement those who cannot afford insurance and the cost of medical treatment.  If you think your premiums and cost today are high, they will only go higher with government controlled plans.  As a bonus to the higher costs you will have no choice but purchase these plans because now it becomes a law that you must have insurance.  If you don’t, you will be penalized by the IRS, and may also face imprisonment.

So, before jumping on the government control bandwagon, look at the other proposals being offered.  Every plan wants those with pre-existing conditions to be covered at costs within reasonable limits of a regular policy.  Every plan wants to provide insurance coverage to all that don’t have it.  No plan offers free insurance, free medical, free dental or free medicine to all.  Do you want the government controlling your medical treatment and care, along with mandatory requirements, higher premiums and higher taxes?  Or do you want patient choice?