Wherein I offer the shortest and most insightful blog ever on our current president, Barack Hussein Obama

What a moron.

Obamacare for Everything

It looks like the feds want to bring Obamacare to ISPs by controlling what they allow on their networks. I was reading some comments and I want to share one in particular because I have heard this sentiment several times in the last few days. The person commenting was saying that increased regulation is good and difficult to argue with because, "we are living through the bleak aftermath of an economic collapse created by too little regulation."

First let's quickly examine the main presupposition underlying this statement, that the current recession was caused by "too little regulation." That's like saying automobile accidents are caused by too few cops on the road. No, highway accidents are caused by drivers screwing up. Behind so much of the current push for bigger government is the idea that with just the right committees, advisers, and regulations we can fix all of our problems, or in other words, create a utopia. You see, we have really smart people in government right now, and we can trust them to come up with the correct "plans" for our economy.

If you want to see the ultimate outcome of a planned economy, look no further than Cuba. They have committees, advisers, and regulations to cover everything. I will trade the cyclical recessions of the free market system for the chronically under productive misery of a government regulated and planned economy any day.

I don't think this comparison is unfair because most reporters and commentators have missed a major theme of Obamacare for the economy. President Obama has a vision of what he believes the US economy should look like and he is implementing "plans" to realize his vision. The big issue at the moment is healthcare, 1/6 of our GDP. He thinks it's all wrong the way it is now. Whatever you believe about the "government option," no one can argue that Obama wants to establish a myriad of government panels to guide doctors and hospitals how to best do their jobs.

The assumption here is that the people who are actually doing the work are completely ignorant about how to best do their jobs. Doctors are always ordering the wrong tests. Hospitals have no idea how to run their business. Private insurers are bloated by inefficiency and greed. But committees in Washington will (the heavens open bathing us all in pure white light) be able to guide these poor fools to the truth.

This is just a continuation of what we have already seen. Obamacare applied to the auto industry resulted in the sacking of the GM's CEO and is pushing automakers (heavens open again) into business models centered around environmentally sensitive cars. This will be the ultimate demise of the US auto industry. Rather than let the marketplace guide auto production, Obama insists that his vision of the green future must guide production.

Four legs good, two legs bad. Planned economy good, market economy bad.

Look, I don't know how much clearer President Obama could make this. He repeatedly lectures the American people telling us that our future lies in "green" industry. If we get to this so-called "green" economy via market forces, fine. But if anyone, Obama or any future president, tries to regulate and muscle the American economy into this utopian green vision, it will be a disaster.

Pay attention the next time President Obama speaks on these issues. I want to give you a simple listening guide. First President Obama will declare how he is a firm supporter of the "free market system" and believes it's the "best system to guide our economy." Most people stop listening at this point, relieved that President Obama is a free market guy.

But next he'll start outlining all the ways he thinks government should curb, regulate, and direct the "free market." Forget about the pro-free market rhetoric, this gives us a much better clue as to what Obama really believes.

Fixing the British Healthcare System in My Sleep

It turns out one of the ways the bureaucrats in England think they can improve their National Healthcare System is by somehow getting NHS workers to stop calling in sick so often.

Here's the way it breaks down:

NHS employees on average call in sick 10.7 days each year. This is one full day above the 9.7 day average for all public sector employees. (Gee, why do I suspect that government employees in England get 10 paid sick days per year?)

In case you're wondering, private sector employees in England take 6.4 sick days each year.

Officials are looking at all sorts of health and wellness issues and scheming expensive ways to bring down the NHS employee sick days.

I can save them the trouble. Here's the answer: privatize the healthcare system. The statistics indicate that this move alone should bring healthcare workers sick days down to about 6.4 per year.

You don't have to thank me.

More Moveon.org Disinformation

In response to Moveon.org's TOP FIVE HEALTH CARE LIES—AND HOW TO FIGHT BACK:

1. Of course President Obama doesn’t want to euthanize your grandma. (Although by his own words, he might prefer she take pain pills rather than get an operation.) However, do you want government-backed end-of-life counseling when there will certainly be overwhelming pressures to keep healthcare costs down? The pressure on the poor and handicapped to make themselves less of a burden on society will be powerful.

2. Just because the bill has “words” that say it will not outlaw private insurers doesn’t guarantee there will continue to be private insurers. If one of the options is a public “health insurance” that has the full faith and credit of the US government behind it, not to mention Congress and the President, it will eventually put private insurers out of business. In candid moments lawmakers say this very thing.

3. Of course President Obama doesn’t want Soviet-style rationing. Actually, the Soviets didn’t want it either. There is rationing with any system. The question is: would you rather have the free market allocate the resources, or federal bureaucrats? I agree our healthcare system must be improved. I don’t believe it needs a total redesign.

4. True, Obama is not secretly plotting to cut Medicare. He is very open about it. Anyone who believes the government can cut $200 billion out of Medicare without reducing the care it provides is dreaming. And if you do believe this, by the way, you are signing on to the proposition that the government that allowed this “fraud and abuse” in the first place is now suddenly capable of running a lean-mean healthcare machine. Right.

5. When the government passed the income tax, lawmakers guaranteed no one would ever pay more than six percent. When they passed social security they guaranteed no one would ever pay more than two percent. Medicare is not funded. Bush’s Medicare drug reform is already under-funded. Whenever a politician from either party says something will pay for itself, grab your wallet. Can we please learn something from history?

And finally, puleeeeze, Moveon.org? Gimme a break.

Obama's Fight for, er I mean against, Civil Liberties

Bush waged his war on terrorists. Obama wages his war on dissidents.

If the truth may be told, both “wars” threaten civil liberties. Bush’s war threatened the civil liberties of terrorists and a small group of ACLU-type terrorist sympathizers. Obama’s war threatens anyone who opposes his policies and has the courage to say so publicly.

We live in an imperfect world. Which civil-liberty-threatening war do you prefer?

My wife said this morning that for the first time she was “scared” by what Obama and the Democrat operatives were doing to silence the political opposition. As I read through various news stories and political commentaries, the word “terrified” started popping up. Something unprecedented is happening in this nation.

Our president started his career as a community organizer. But when communities of Americans who hold moderate and conservative political views “organize” it is suddenly a bad thing. If a community of doctors, or (shudder) insurers, organize it is evil.

Get ready for a mega-dose of the truth: whether we leave our health care system primarily in the hands of private insurance companies, or we go entirely to a government-run single-payer system, costs are going to increase.

Here’s the difference:
The government-run system will cover increased costs by raising your taxes and rationing care, although it will never be called “rationing.” The insurance-based system will cover increased costs by raising premiums and rationing care, although it will never be called “rationing.”

These facts are undeniable. The advantage of the system based on private insurance is that it can have the element of competition injected into it, which will tend to decrease the rate of premium hikes. There is nothing to check increased costs in the government system. In fact, citizens will perceive health care to be “free” and we know what happens when people think things are free.

Let’s put all our cards on the table: Has any federal program ever been known for saving us money?

Believe it or not, sometimes in private industry middle managers lose their jobs to streamline corporate operations. How often do mid-level civil service system bureaucrats get laid off? Does anyone locked into the civil service system ever lose his job except for extreme malfeasance?

What should we do? Level the playing field. Give employees the money that went to their insurance and let them spend it as they see fit. Give the self-employed the same tax advantages businesses receive when they purchase health insurance.

Build more medical schools and nursing schools. Encourage more use of nurse practitioners.

If the uninsured are clogging up our emergency rooms for minor medical problems, establish an adjunct to the emergency room that is staffed by nurse practitioners who can handle minor problems.

Limit malpractice settlements to actual damages. Eliminate punitive damages. When doctors screw up badly, take away their licenses. That should be punitive enough and send a message to the medical profession.

Give patients access to some quality of care rating system for physicians and hospitals. The fast food place where I grab a burger has a health department rating posted for everyone to see. Are doctors and hospitals any less critical to my well being?

Adios American Pie

In Detroit, a rustbelt city busy waving bye-bye to the auto industry, there are plans to split the burg into a collection of small urban centers separated from each other by countryside. This reverse-supersizing is already well on the way to implementation in Flint, Michigan.

I remember touring some Mayan ruins several years ago. A pyramid and a few other impressive stone structures stood restored surrounded by neatly trimmed lawn. I climbed to the top of the pyramid and peered out over the jungle. The guidebook described how the city originally spread for miles in every direction. But for reasons unknown to us, the Mayans abandoned it, giving the entwining vines the only opening they needed to take back what had been theirs.

I imagine some day archeologists will explore the area we now call “Detroit” and conclude that at one time a large, vibrant people group—future anthropologists will call them something like Factory Workers Americanus—had inhabited a vast area but apparently abandoned the land for some reason which, by then, will be lost to history.

The day after I started working on this blog, I came across another item that does not portend well for this nation. WWMT in Kalamazoo, Michigan reports, “More than 20 of the state's 83 counties have reverted deteriorating paved roads to gravel in the last few years, according to the County Road Association of Michigan.” It only costs about $10,000 per mile to grind up old pavement and replace the road surface with gravel. To repave costs $100,000 per mile. This phenomena isn’t isolated in Michigan. According to WWMT, although the trend is biggest in Michigan, it is happening in other states as well.

When Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was on his way to being President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, he told the Senate, “…for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." Certainly Michigan’s troubles can be directly traced to the failing auto industry. Was Wilson speaking a truth perhaps bigger than even he thought at the time?

The American automobile has been the icon of the good life in the United States for the last 60+ years. It enabled the invention of something called “suburbia” which set the stage for modern America, the America that became the leader of the free world.

But now the automotive heartland is plowing itself under and letting its roads revert to ruts. Can the rest of the nation be far behind?

More truth than you can take

Want to raise money without raising taxes? How about this: US out of Germany. Better yet: US out of everywhere. Then let's allow countries to bid on our presence. Our troops provide protection and pump billions of dollars into the economies of the countries where we have bases. That should be worth something to the "host" countries.

• • •

If Presidents Bush and Obama have accomplished nothing else, they have certainly brought into focus the social divide between conservatives and liberals in our nation:

Conservatives believe in freedom which is tempered by responsibility and the belief in eternal, transcendent truths.

Liberals believe in freedom as unfettered permissiveness with no absolute truth. Pornography on public school and library computers. In-your-face expression of homosexual (and heterosexual) behavior. Violent pornographic lyrics blaring in public. Video games that portray the most gruesome killings imaginable.

On security issues, conservatives want to maintain a safe society in which responsible citizens of all stripes can exercise their rights and freedoms while liberals believe the highest good is to protect the rights and freedoms of those who most directly threaten the rights and freedoms of responsible citizens. For example, liberals object to snooping on people talking to known terrorists, yet advise police to start snooping on people sporting Palin bumper stickers.

Conservatives desire to protect the innocent while liberals desire to protect the guilty. We see this most starkly in that conservatives oppose abortion while liberals oppose capital punishment.

Tell me where I’m wrong.

• • •

MISCELLANEA: Iran Clones Goat. I'll let you, valued reader, build a joke around this news item. And not to be outdone, scientists at Dubai's Camel Reproduction Center (this place actually exists) have cloned a camel, of course…Want to cut oil imports? Make all the roads toll roads tomorrow…Newspaper closings. As we depend on electronic media we open ourselves to info disruption by enemy hackers or EMI…The day I read about thousands of government workers being laid off the same way I've been reading about factory workers, I'll know someone in Washington is serious about saving money… Are you as tired of President Obama's "nose in the air" national lectures as I am? His arrogance is overwhelming.

• • •

"The impact of climate change is a tremendous risk to the security and well-being of our countries," Nancy Pelosi announced to a group in China. Exactly what is the risk to our security if the world warms up or cools down a few degrees? Or to our "well-being"? Explain please. It's just hyperbole, nothing more. Isn't it ironic, by the way, that perhaps the biggest socialist in our government, Nancy Pelosi, went to the world's biggest socialist/communist nation, and found that they are more committed to growing their private sector than we are?

• • •

During the campaign no one dared whisper Hussein when referring to the candidate's name, but now President Obama virtually insists on using this Muslim moniker. As part of his rapprochement to the Islamic world, our president asserted that the US is one of the world's largest Muslim nations if you count the number of Muslims in the population. As soon as people started to crunch the numbers it turns out that even with the most generous estimate of the number of Muslims living in the USA, the country would be no more than the world's 34th largest Muslim nation, behind world powers such as Burkina Faso and Tajikistan. Another lie from BHO. (Isn't that an airport abbreviation?)

• • •

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's pick for the Supremes, said repeatedly.

Of course I disagree with her, but if what she said is true, I know one thing: a wise Latina woman who happened to be a judge aspiring to higher office would have had the sense not to say as much publicly.