Quote:

Oct 8 of 2008 I predicted -- right here on Huffington Post -- that Obama would have a great presidency. Not only do I stand by my remarks made then but reiterate them now in the light of today's historic health care bill's passage. I also hereby call out the Democratic Party doubters (from the left) of our president who have been so ready to dismiss him. Who is looking smart today? Presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine. Obama is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times. He's just outworked and outsmarted the far right and the far left. The Tea party troglodytes are reduced to yelling racial epithets from the sidelines. The Lefty critics have egg on their faces. I say this as a white, former Republican active on the Religious Right before I got disgusted with right wing hate and changed my mind in the mid-80s, something I write about in my memoir Crazy For God .I say this as just another American watching his health care costs go stratospheric. I say this as someone happy to have been called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring early in the primaries that, 1) Obama would win the nomination and then the election, and 2) that he was going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents. You doubters beware. In November the Democrats will do much better than expected right now. You were wrong on health care. You are wrong about problems in November too. And while we're at it: Obama is not in the "pocket of Wall Street." He is not "betraying working America." What you saw today you'll see next in financial reform of banking laws. And you'll also see the economy turn around. Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He just has been. Ask the Republicans today! This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words, he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right. He's already made them angry. And because he did that he just won a huge victory. Obama has a reservoir of personal, physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Take a look at the signs the Tea Party people carry. Take a look at the weapons they carry. As the first black president, Obama is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white president ever has had to do. His health care reform victory just made his life more dangerous. What personal risk have his critics taken? What courage was required to snipe from the sidelines? Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. Both the Left and Right not only blinked but ducked. Obama stood tall. Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we were ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity -- Bush -- who expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror. Bush legalized torture. Obama just legalized health care for all. Which line would you rather stand in? America is fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. From the nutty Right we were told that Obama wanted to kill old people. From the nutty Left we were told Obama had "sold out to big pharma." What nonsense! A brilliant leader with the mild manner of an old-time matter-of-fact country doctor soothing a frightened child is just what we need. The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory. Literally we have a president that is now a healer of millions hitherto uninsured. Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. Doubters from the left and right just look cranky by comparison. A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/obamas-health-care-victor_b_507595.html

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

If I were an American, the passing of this bill is something that I would be crying over.

Hlysnan wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 5:52pm:

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." If I were an American, the passing of this bill is something that I would be crying over.

Pathetic.

Well, we can only  wish that Mark Steyn is wrong.


Quote:

Happy Dependence Day!   [Mark Steyn] Well, it seems to be in the bag now. I try to be a sunny the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full kinda guy, but it's hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished. Whatever is in the bill is an intermediate stage: As the graph posted earlier shows, the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be "insurers" in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that's clear we'll be on the fast track to Obama's desired destination of single payer as a fait accomplis. If Barack Obama does nothing else in his term in office, this will make him one of the most consequential presidents in history. It's a huge transformative event in Americans' view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Their bet is that it can't be undone, and that over time, as I've been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there's plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada, and elsewhere. More prosaically, it's also unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the U.S. is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity. Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side . . .

Quote:

Obama is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times. He's just outworked and outsmarted the far right and the far left. The Tea party troglodytes are reduced to yelling racial epithets from the sidelines. The Lefty critics have egg on their faces.

It's difficult to differentiate between this and satire. I remember listening to Samuel G. Dickson having a little debate with a fervent admirer of Barack Obama regarding his supposed otherwordly intellect. He speaks well (as long as the teleprompters are rolling, I guess), and he.. went to Harvard Law School. Forgive me for being reluctant to include this as decided indication of this fellow's titanic brain-power. For most individuals, sure, but when you belong to a certain protected class, as almost surefire proof, it is completely thrown out the window. If I could observe his LSAT scores I would be able to pinpoint just how intelligent he is with considerable accuracy, but.. last time I checked, he isn't releasing them. Definitely brighter than his wife though, who did make the terrible mistake of releasing her fluffy, flowery Princeton disseration. 'Thank-you', Michelle.

Obama is not going to last the next election. Many of my American friends inform me that it isn't just Obama that will be done away the next time the ballot boxes are rolled out, it's the entire Democratic party. It isn't really his fault though. He's just been made president at one of the worst possible times to be made president. I have no reason to believe that his economic interventions and wizardry are going to ameliorate the American situation. The slow, steady decline will continue to go on, even while the Kenyan warlock, gesturing with a defiant outwardly faced palm towards the tide, attempts to stop it.

Certainly not going to go down in history as one of the best. Nor the worst. Just another Carter, though kept from relegation to the historical waste-bin by the gentle, coffee-colour of his skin.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 7:45pm:

Certainly not going to go down in history as one of the best. Nor the worst. Just another Carter, though kept from relegation to the historical waste-bin by the gentle, coffee-colour of his skin.

A good example of a "tea party" sympathiser without the balls to call him a black person.

Well, we do have our white trash here too, I guess.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 7:45pm:

It isn't really his fault though. He's just been made president at one of the worst possible times to be made president.

Just like Lincoln, then.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 11:30pm:

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 22nd, 2010 at 7:45pm: Certainly not going to go down in history as one of the best. Nor the worst. Just another Carter, though kept from relegation to the historical waste-bin by the gentle, coffee-colour of his skin. A good example of a "tea party" sympathiser without the balls to call him a black person. Well, we do have our white trash here too, I guess.

Helian has learnt a new term. But does he quite know what it entails?

Soren wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 7:13pm:

Well, we can only  wish that Mark Steyn is wrong. Quote: Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side . . .

It seems to be an intriguing facet of "American sensibility" of a people who, on the one hand, are the inheritors and architects of a great society and on the other are so fundamentally and eternally insecure about their society's future.

Quote:

Just like Lincoln, then.

Ah.. but if only the situation now was anything like that of the Civil War, and strongly, directly influencable via government intervention. Obama is going to foot the blame for this run away carriage, regardless of how much he contributes to it being buggered up or not.

Maybe there are things he can do; but mostly he has proven himself on most fronts to be 'business as usual'. But you can keep your fantasy, your fantasy of being rescued by a 'handsome' black mulatto, burning strongly within your own mind. Maybe he will summon a Djinn.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 11:53pm:

Quote: Just like Lincoln, then. Ah.. but if only the situation now was anything like that of the Civil War; and strongly, directly influencable via government intervention. Obama is going to foot the blame for this run away carriage, regardless of how much he contributes to it being buggered up or not.

As any great leader would expect. And let history be the judge... It worked for FDR. He didn't foot the blame for the Great Depression.


aikmann4 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 11:53pm:

Maybe there are things he can do; but mostly he has proven himself on most fronts to be 'business as usual'. But you can keep your fantasy, your fantasy of being rescued by a 'handsome' black mulatto, burning strongly within your own mind. Maybe he will summon a Djinn.

Ah... So its a homo-erotic fantasy you're masking ;D (assuming you're male).

Quote:

As any great leader would expect.

Maybe he's not so completely consumed by his own hubris as to expect it; the question more is whether or not he cares.


Quote:

Ah... So its a homo-erotic fantasy you're masking.

Impossible. I am a bonafide grade seven zoosexual -- emotionally and physically attracted to Tyrannosaurus Rex, and nothing else. I will spend the rest of my life knowing that I will never experience true love or the exhilaration of actual sexual contact, as the object of my desires perished a long time ago.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2010 at 12:09am:

Quote: As any great leader would expect. Maybe he's not so completely consumed by his own hubris as to expect it; the question more is whether or not he cares.

Quote:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.... They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.

FDR

How's that for "hubris".


aikmann4 wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2010 at 12:09am:

Quote: Ah... So its a homo-erotic fantasy you're masking. Impossible. I am a bonafide grade seven zoosexual

Grade seven, eh.... Well I ain't going near that one.  :o

Quote:

And let history be the judge...

I agree. The only problem about this approach is that it requires patience; like trying to get my 1979 Ford ute to start up as I prepare to make my way home to the local caravan park.

Because, you know. There's plenty of us here too.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2010 at 12:38am:

Quote: And let history be the judge... I agree. The only problem about this approach is that it requires patience;

History favours the patient and the resolute.


aikmann4 wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2010 at 12:38am:

like trying to get my 1979 Ford ute to start up as I prepare to make my way home to the local caravan park. Because, you know. There's plenty of us here too.

I could say it...

But I won't.

what

Imperium, I think everyone's waiting for the long post about how Obama can't possibly make a go of things because he's straight out of a coconut tree, etc, backed up by 1930s eugenic theories, Nazi racial policies, and a few stats thrown in to prove the inherent inability of the "darker races" to do anything other than pick cotton.

I could be wrong, but...

(to be continued...)

Karnal has degenerated into a worthless travesty of himself, which is a shame because he was considerably more tolerable before he flipped poo and went bonkers at Soren with his ridiculous parody in the previous thread. I think you'll find I share the same level of disdain for George W. Bush, John McCain and Bill Clinton as I do for Barack Obama.

Your transparent accusations of my putative Nazism are getting old, Karnal. Though my recent learning of your ethnic heritage has shed some light and understanding on your behaviour; you are a race hustler and an agitator, and your attitudes are directly a result of your own inferiority complexes concerning your own ethnic group.

;) ;) ;)

See? I can do that too, Karnal. Doesn't mean sh!t.

Sorry, what's my racial grouping again?

Otherwise, you're right. I'm certainly a worthless travesty.

I am sensing a post coming on though, Imperium. I can feel it...

Quote:

Sorry, what's my racial grouping again?

Send me your photograph, a skin sample and an authenticated copy of your genealogical records, please.

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2010 at 3:26pm:

Quote: Sorry, what's my racial grouping again? Send me your photograph, a skin sample and an authenticated copy of your genealogical records, please.

Ah. You'll want the callipers too then, Imperium. You'll need to measure my hooked nose and hunchback.

Good grief - I've never thought of this. Maybe I was racially contaminated some time back. Heavens!

Maybe - and I don't say this lightly - there's a touch of the tarbrush in me. How would you know?

Now you've got me worried. I'm going to need a thorough examination. How do they do it?

I hope it's not painful.

Once disdainers, now praisers... Go figure.

Once Opponents, Insurers Back Effort to Make Health Reform Succeed
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1974757,00.html

Yes, I wonder what could be motivating the health insurers to come around to the package.

Could it be the 31 million new insurance premiums paid for by the Feds?

No no no. The health insurance and pharmaceutical industries have just changed their policy direction. They want increased social good, universal healthcare, a safety net, etc, etc, etc. They want to be part of this new social experiment: the American welfare state.

Funny how Time magazine didn't ask why.

Yeah, I think blind Freddy can see why.

The important issue is that the arse is falling out of the Republican crackpot front. The insurance companies poured millions into the "No" campaign.

What will be its legacy, will be not only the memory of an ugly campaign of fear, lies and loathing, but a racist attack on a prominent US leader with echoes of the racist bitterness of the Civil rights movement that so shocked America into graphic realisation of the evil still close to its heart 100 years after the end of slavery.

Will questions be asked of how fundamentally has America really moved forward, or is US racial enlightenment the thinnest of thin veneers?

Before the war US healthcare was similar to most other developed countries. That is to say, it was free market, but there was some state involvement. The primary state involvement consisted of the licensing of physicians, which was (and is) done by the states and typically in accordance with American Medical Association guidelines. There were also some public hospitals in most states in an attempt to help the needy. Typically people paid for healthcare out of pocket (ie, cash) and there were insurance plans available for catastrophic events.

The real change came during World War 2. FDR had previously toyed with socialized healthcare in the 1930s but abandoned it. During the war, to control inflation, companies were not allowed to compete for workers on the basis of wages. They were, however, allowed to compete on the basis of benefits, and Congress created a new type of health insurance in which the insurer basically paid all healthcare expenses. Imagine having automobile insurance which paid for repairs and gasoline. These plans multiplied rapidly as corporations offered them to get workers. Postwar Truman again toyed with national healthcare, but decided the existing system was working. Before long nearly all Americans and their families were covered by employer provided healthcare. This new system was inherently problematic in that patients no longer had an incentive to ration their healthcare nor did doctors. Even insurers don't really have an incentive to since they can just raise premiums. Around the same time legislation was passed encouraging the construction of public hospitals, so America went from having mostly private hospitals to mostly public hospitals over the next few decades.

It must be noted now that there is some degree of universality in the U.S healthcare system, in that hospital emergency rooms cannot turn away people who seek treatment regardless of their ability to pay. This humane law, in combination with the lack of universal coverage, creates problems in that uninsured people and idiots go to emergency rooms for minor healthcare issues which severely tax critical emergency room resources and send costs soaring. This is a particularly severe problem in the Southwest due to the increasing accumulation of the latino poison there.

The next major change to the system came with LBJ's "Great Society" in 1965. While most Americans did have healthcare, there was a problem with the elderly maintaining their insurance coverage. There was also an issue with indigents gaining access to healthcare, since healthcare was predicated on employment. Thus Medicare and Medicaid were created. Medicare is a single-payer universal insurance system, like Canada's healthcare, for all people over the age of 65. There is a monthly premium which is deducted from Social Security (America's pension system). Medicaid is a single-payer system for indigents, although each state runs its own Medicaid plan and receives matching funds from the federal government. After these changes America had close to de facto universal healthcare.

Cracks in the system began emerging soon. I am not sure why, but shortly after the creation of Medicare and Medicaid inflation of healthcare costs exploded. Right-wing intellectuals have long blamed Medicare and Medicaid, but I haven't examined their claims. There was a TIME Magazine cover article in 1979 however which did say that the system was a perfect model to inflate costs -- perhaps the insurance industry had a hand in the legislation? At any rate, this problem was clearly noticed in the 1970s and since then there have been half-hearted attempts to correct it. Nixon proposed universal single-payer healthcare. In the mid-1970s Congress created a new form of health insurance known as managed care (such plans are known as HMOs), in which the insurance organization is to ration care. This did not have the desired effect but did infuriate people. As healthcare costs continued to increase, deindustrialization began, and mass immigration resumed for the first time in half a century the problem of uninsured people began to emerge. Congress attempted another remedy in the 1980s by creating legislation which allowed people to continue participating in employer-provided group health insurance plans even after no longer working there, which helped rustbelt layoffs but also contributed further to healthcare inflation and declining industrial competitiveness.

Since then the system has basically continued on autopilot. The only real changes I can think of since 1985 are the creation of tax-free medical savings plans (similar to Singapore's CPF only not mandatory). There have been two attempts to create universal healthcare, in 1993 (torpedoed by Congress) and today (clusterbugger of a bill which will probably fail). Massachusetts created universal healthcare on its own under Governor Mitt Romney, though I would consider its system to be idiotic. It should be noted that there are peculiarities of the American system which make health insurance more expensive than it should be as well. Due to separate state regulatory systems, insurance cannot be purchased across state lines (this includes all forms of insurance and not just healthcare, as far as I know).

To be continued..

Not sure, Helian. Do you think part of the backlash against Obama is racially motivated?

Sure, we know part of the presidential campaign against him was - especially in the South.

The economy is bad in the States right now. Perhaps people are turning against Obama because he seems powerless against the forces of capital.

He needs a victory badly. I hope this watered-down health thing gives it to him.

America's lawsuit culture (and legal system generally) likely substantially increases costs, and while studies show a negligible cost increase from torts I'm not sure they take into account altered doctor behavior (e.g. performing every possible procedure to avoid getting sued, or just not seeing certain kinds of patients). While most health insurance is group (ie, an employer purchases a group plan on behalf of its employees who then copay), employers or individuals may not themselves band together to purchase group health insurance.

At any rate from this you can see that the America system is certainly not unregulated or free market, these are just cheap slogans. At the same time you can see the system is not socialist, which is also just a cheap slogan.


Quote:

Not sure, Helian. Do you think part of the backlash against Obama is racially motivated?

In part, of course. Support for him (particularly among blacks) is also racially motivated. Black people have a tendency to vote for candidates in this way -- and when all available options are of the black variety, they vote for the one they consider the "blackest" (regardless of competency) **. How else did that degenerate criminal Marion Barry get re-elected?


**being the "blackest" (in the sense described) typically precludes competency of any kind, as "black culture", and thus black standards, is effectively dysfunctional.

Big Donger wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 3:32pm:

Not sure, Helian. Do you think part of the backlash against Obama is racially motivated? Sure, we know part of the presidential campaign against him was - especially in the South. The economy is bad in the States right now. Perhaps people are turning against Obama because he seems powerless against the forces of capital.

Yes, well, nothing worse for your cause than stirring the ghost of hatred past with a few racial epithets directed at the man who realised the dreams of MLK.

Might just remind people of the days when a nation awoke in fright.

http://www.crmvet.org/crmpics/bham-dog1b.jpg

http://www.crmvet.org/crmpics/bham12a.jpg

http://www.crmvet.org/crmpics/bham3a.jpg

Quote:

realised the dreams of MLK.

Already happened ages ago -- what that particular racial partisan really wanted has mostly been realized.

Though do you mean when he spoke dishonestly, cloaking himself with a duplicitous universalist tongue? What he called out for there has not come to pass. But that likely would not matter to him.


Quote:

Might just remind people of the days when a nation awoke in fright.

Those whites who happen to live in a place like say, Over-the-Rhine, don't need to be reminded.

http://www.writespirit.net/inspirational_talks/political/martin_luther_king_talks/martin-luther-king2.jpg

I'M F*CKIN FOR JESUS TONIGHT

aikmann4 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 10:23pm:

Quote: realised the dreams of MLK. Already happened ages ago -- what that particular racial partisan really wanted has mostly been realized.

And closer as of 03/01/2010.


aikmann4 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 10:23pm:

Quote: Might just remind people of the days when a nation awoke in fright. Those whites who happen to live in a place like say, Over-the-Rhine, don't need to be reminded.

Oh, but they do. And they must.

http://i39.tinypic.com/21edoxi.jpg

http://i43.tinypic.com/m74y1v.jpg

Wow, Helian sure does love black people. ;D

Just as the founding fathers observed - that slavery was the new nation's original sin.

An evil from which the great society has yet to complete its exorcism. A sin for which the great society has yet to fully atone.

Nearly every civilization in human history has had slavery.  You just worship weakness and think its somehow wrong to use power.

The evil of slavery was not the keeping of men in bondage, which is quite acceptable, but of introducing the negro race to this nation.  And as our Founding Fathers observed, especially anti-slavery slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, a nation cannot function with two races, both free.

All of this would be lost on you, a deracinated self-flagellating white who thinks the highest good is transferring the resources and power of your own race to other ones.  Pathetic.

http://www.dilpicklepress.com/images/Might_is_Right_lg.gif

;D

Coral Sea wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:40am:

Nearly every civilization in human history has had slavery.  You just worship weakness and think its somehow wrong to use power.

::)
Nothing to do then with the founding fathers' commitment to liberty and the rights of man, then?


Coral Sea wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:40am:

The evil of slavery was not the keeping of men in bondage, which is quite acceptable, but of introducing the negro race to this nation.  And as our Founding Fathers observed, especially anti-slavery slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, a nation cannot function with two races, both free. All of this would be lost on you, a deracinated self-flagellating white who thinks the highest good is transferring the resources and power of your own race to other ones.  Pathetic.

::)

Nothing to do with the likely collapse of south's economy with the abolition of slavery, then... The effect of which probably could be likened in today's terms with the closing down of the IT industry in the US.


Coral Sea wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:40am:

All of this would be lost on you, a deracinated self-flagellating white who thinks the highest good is transferring the resources and power of your own race to other ones.  Pathetic.

::)
That'd be sharing of resources and power...

That'd be lost on you, you twisted old bugger.   Pathetic.

Good posts, Imperium. I'm impressed. America has favoured this private model. It seems to me that this has been their undoing.

Why not just set up a universal system - like Australia's Medibank/care? After all, it would probably, in the end, be cheaper.

The reason is the health campaign funds that goes to politicians of both colours (sorry, old boy - red and blue, not black and white). The argument about socialised medicine has been sustained by the insurance and pharmaceutical bribes. The health insurance companies have been in the driver's seat for way too long in US health policy.

If Clinton and Obama couldn't change things, when will it ever happen? Perhaps it will take a Republican to get this done - like Nixon going to China.

Big Donger wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 12:56pm:

If Clinton and Obama couldn't change things, when will it ever happen? Perhaps it will take a Republican to get this done - like Nixon going to China.

The tragic irony is that Nixon did want to reform the health system. He and Ted Kennedy were working on it when Nixon's administration was embroiled and then destroyed by Watergate.

Nixon? Gee. The guy who wrote off to Dilantin to get his pills rather than see his GP.

And got them!

I can't imagine the sort of system he'd have come up with.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:57am:

::) Nothing to do then with the founding fathers' commitment to liberty and the rights of man, then?

I have little interest in Enlightenment table talk.  "Rights" are a social construction with no inherent metaphysical significance, and the framers were committed to restricting liberty to the white population of this country.  We're well past a white nation now which most of us have adjusted to, but for some baffling reason some people just want to surrender more and more of what we have left.


NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:57am:

::) Nothing to do with the likely collapse of south's economy with the abolition of slavery, then... The effect of which probably could be likened in today's terms with the closing down of the IT industry in the US.

What is this in response to?  At any rate the South adjusted by switching to sharecropping, only to suffer another crisis when cotton exhausted the soil in the 1890s.  The closing down of the IT industry here is just part of the broader trend of deindustrialization that impoverishes many in the West now.


NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 26^th, 2010 at 9:57am:

::) That'd be sharing of resources and power... That'd be lost on you, you twisted old bugger.   Pathetic.

Sharing results in a loss of resources precisely because they are split.  There is no reason to share resources with a hostile but weak group.

On the topic, Coral Sea, how do you feel about Obama, a man who - by the natural order of things - should be picking tobacco, but has instead been placed on the throne?

It must make you wonder about Amerika - we'd never do that here!

Hlysnan wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2010 at 5:52pm:

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." If I were an American, the passing of this bill is something that I would be crying over.

I am an American, and we are doing much more than crying. All maxists liberals must become dictators because they are living the lie that they can give away an infinite amount of other people's money.  As soon as they run out of other people's money, dissent begins, and the liberal's lie is exposed.

Then, the liberal maxist must become a dictator to conceal his lies and suppress dissent. President Obama is already on this path.  The American people will throw the dangerous bum out.  

One year ago, Obama had been President for only 2 months, and already Americans were in the streets demonstrating against Obama.  We know him for the pathological liar that he is, and for the dictator that he wants to be.

Watch for the USA to erupt in civil disobedience that makes the 1960's civil rights demonstrations look like child's play. Obama is a thug and fraud, and he will be gone.

What is it with Americans and their obsession with Marxism? That and their congenital and eternal insecurity about the stability of the nation.

Roosevelt (FDR) was accused of being a socialist, a Marxist, a dictator and even a National Socialist... He became one of America's greatest Presidents and the American people honoured him by electing him President four times. The only American President to be so elected.