September 21, 2009 ·
The Coming Crisis (Part 3)
Before we move too far along, I think it is important that we get some vital background info here, and for that, I turn to the (mostly) delightful pages of Through the Looking Glass and our lovely friend, Humpty Dumpty who has the following exchange with Alice:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less"
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can</I> make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."
With Lewis Carroll's words still reverberating around around skulls, let's head straight to the transcript between our Shadow President™®© and George Stephanopoulous on ABC's This Week (transcript borrowed from The Wall Street Journal):
Under Max Baucus's Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year.
Mr. Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when "the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't [buy insurance]. . . . How is that not a tax?"
"Well, hold on a second, George," Mr. Obama replied. "Here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average—our families—in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's . . ."
"That may be," Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, "but it's still a tax increase." (In fact, uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today, but that's another subject.)
Mr. Obama: "No. That's not true, George. The—for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore . . ." In other words, like parents talking to their children, this levy—don't call it a tax—is for your own good.
Mr. Stephanopoulos tried again: "But it may be fair, it may be good public policy—"
Mr. Obama: "No, but—but, George, you—you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase."
"I don't think I'm making it up," Mr. Stephanopoulos said. He cited that dictionary's definition of "tax"—"a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."
Mr. Obama: "George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. . . ."
Mr. Stephanopoulos: "I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase."
Mr. Obama: "My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but . . ."
Mr. Stephanopoulos: "But you reject that it's a tax increase?"
Mr. Obama: "I absolutely reject that notion."
I honestly don't even know where to begin with The Shadow President's™®© ignorance, to say nothing of his arrogance. If George Stephanopoulos (a Democrat cheerleader if ever there was one) and Merriam-Webster aren't enough to convince him that his condescending attitude has lost grips with reality, I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to. He'd just call me a partisan and a racist, undoubtedly.
For those of us whom will have to pay for this travesty, however, I'm hopeful that this latest outburst from 'the messiah' shows how dedicated he is to the one and actual true goal of his Shadow Presidency®©™: to bring our nation wholly into an socialistic lifestyle. We've been teetering on the edge for decades now, but have always managed to beat it back at the last moment. IF The Shadow President™©® was even one-tenth as smart or half the Uniter that he claimed to be, and his supporters swore he was during last year's campaign, he could have had everything he wanted. Instead, in a rush to gain total control of every aspect of our lives, he has severely miscalculated. The American public, as lazy as we have become, still have enough time in our days to watch news and read news, even on accident, to know that we are being lied to. Maybe we don't know all the details, but there is definitely a sense in each of us, call it intuition if you must, that warns us when someone is being untruthful, when someone is looking to do us harm, when someone is looking to control us. We should always listen to that voice.
And make no mistake, control is exactly what this faux health care debate is all about. If you think for one moment that anyone in our government gives a damn about whether or not we have affordable health care, you are sadly mistaken. They simply don't. Politicians care about two things: a.) power and b.) staying in power. Over the years we have all heard and witnessed politicians making claims that even a two-year old with an 80 word vocabulary would know were patently false. This instance is no difference, except for the scope. This nationalization of health care will be the literal needle that breaks the camel's back. Past government programs, many of them started with far more utopian ideas than this one have come back to haunt and cripple our nation financially (again, think Social Security, medicare/medicaid, and pretty much any other government program that pops into your head.) None of them have been a benefit to us as a nation, and in fact, each of them holds our nation as hostage, because before anything else, those monies have to be paid out, and the receipts simply are matching the outlays, and it will only grow worse as we move forward.
Nationalized health care is a bad idea, it's failed nearly every single place where it's been tried (I would assume that Cuba, shockingly, can lay claim to the fact that in a small, contained population, it could work) and we'll discuss that more the next time we bring this topic up. For now, the important thing to remember is that we are being treated like children, and our Shadow President™®© presumes to know more than all of us, therefore we should all trust him with our money and our lives. Count me out.
