Immanentize the Eschaton

I listen to Howard Stern on my drive to and from work. I usually enjoy the show, but I generally change the station when he starts talking about government, politics, and policy. Today’s show reminded me why this is a wise practice.

Howard and the gang have been discussing the recent Citizens United decision. Stern believes that the Court got this completely wrong, and will makes what he sees as an intrinsically corrupt system even worse. He foresees the wholesale buying of Congress critters by corporations and “special interests”, and compared it to the payola scandals in radio. (As an aside, I don’t see what is so horrible about “payola”; it’s not that different than stores selling shelf space to General Mills, for example.). Stern thinks that we need more regulation of political speech and to ban lobbyists and corporations form the public square. Even if Howard’s analysis is correct (and I’m not cynical enough to agree with him), his prescription is way off the mark.

Let’s leave aside the fact that the First Amendment was intended to protect political speech above all else. Let’s ignore the fact that the Amendment gives absolute protection to the right of the people to “petition the government for redress of grievances” (also known as lobbying). Let’s ignore the irony of a self-proclaimed advocate of free speech calling for censorship.

If the danger or fear is that corporate advocacy will lead to “influence peddling”, the correct solution is to bring the power and scope of the government back to its Constitutional limits. In other words, don’t give the Congress critters anything to peddle! We have little reason to fear that a Federal government exercising the limited and enumerated powers granted in the Constitution will be irretrieveably corrupted.

The answer, Howard, is to limit government, not speech!

I worked with Nancy at Marsh & McLennan. She was one of the designers on an IT project; I was the front-end programming lead. She was one of the first people I met at Marsh, and she was a pleasure to work with. She clued me into all the “goings-on” at Marsh, and advised me on how to handle the brokers. I, in turn, advised her on how to handle the programmers!

She always asked me about my family, and how they were doing. My wife and I had our first child when I was at Marsh, and Nancy gave us a very nice outfit for her (which was not surprising, considering her background in the fashion industry).

She often talked about her husband Don, who also worked at Marsh. She’d tell me what they did over the weekend, where they went, what new restaurant they ate at that I’d HAVE to try. She loved their life together.

At the time of the attack, Don worked at the main office in Midtown. You could look straight down 6th Avenue and see the Twin Towers. As I watched the towers burning, I tried to imagine the horror he felt as he watched from Midtown, knowing that the love of his life, indeed, his LIFE, was in the building. I couldn’t do it. I still can’t.

Nancy was a great person, and I was blessed to have known her.

I attended Sue Myrick’s town hall meeting Tuesday night (8/25/09), which was at Weddington High School. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since Myrick is an opponent of HR 3200, and to my knowledge the event hadn’t been publicized very much (I received no mailings nor phone calls).

The scheduled start time was 6:30, so I figured I’d get there around 6:10. I’d probably have to park in the bus lot and sit in the back, but that wouldn’t be a big deal. Lo and behold, I had to park across the street, since all the school lots were full!

I went into WHS, only to find that the auditorium was full. The cafeteria was set up as an overflow room. Myrick’s staff set up an audio feed, but we didn’t have video. The Charlotte Observer reported that the crowd was estimated at 1200 people.

When Rep. Myrick began speaking, it became apparent that that audience was 90% – 10% against the House bill. She was loudly applauded every time she criticized the bill. She encouraged supporters of the bill to speak their minds, and quieted the crowd when she felt the questioners could not be heard.

My impressions are that people do not like what they hear about the bill, and they resented Congress trying to ram it through. They do not trust the government to run a health care system. We were well informed; when a speaker said (and I’m paraphrasing) “the previous speaker said he loves Medicare. That’s socialize medicine! That’s a single-payer system, and he loves it!”, we responded with “Medicare’s broke! It’s trillions in the hole!”

There were those who came to put on some political theater. One man came in a top hat and said he was a representative of the insurance lobby and was there to present Rep. Myrick with an award, since she “has been one our best investments.” Sue received him with good humor (no “What planet do you live on” from her!).

While Rep. Myrick is on our side, she kept repeating that she had no input on the bill; the democrats are responsible for each and every word, comma, and period.  So what’s the point of this exercise?

In all, the audience was angry, but the main current I got was fear. People are afraid of this plan, and this administration. One person near me said that for the first time, she’s afraid of her own government.

I’m with her. I think the Dems will push this through, piecemeal if they have to. I think they’ll get the 60 votes they need in the Senate; there are too many RINOs in the Senate who never fail to do the wrong thing.

We are doomed.

I don’t intend to discuss theology, but I was listening to the Orthodox Word podcast for 8/5/09 this morning. The Gospel reading was the parable of the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). I have heard this parable all my life, but what really caught my ear this time was when the householder said “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or is your eye evil because I am good?”

The worker was annoyed because the householder kept to the deal that was made. He wanted to tell the householder what to do with the householder’s property. In short, he felt he had a right to the householder’s property.

To me, the worker reflects the Statist in our time. The Statist believes he has a right to our property. He answers the householder’s questions “No, you are not allowed to do what you choose, because it does not belong to you. You hold it by our sufferance. It really belongs to us. We allow you to have it.” Everything he does reflects this belief.

I couldn’t believe this when I read it. Barack Obama wants to force wounded veterans’ private insurance companies to reimburse the government for treatment provided by the VA!

These heroes suffered and bled for us, and this piece of shit we have for a President want to force them to use their private medical insurance to pay for healing the wounds they received on our behalf?!!?? This coward who holds our military and veterans in contempt? Is this another front in his battle to force everyone into government run health care?

I am a member of the American Legion, and I thank our Commander, and the Commanders of the other VSOs, for their fight for our heroes.

BHO can go to hell!

I didn’t watch President Obama’s speech last night. I rarely watch State of the Union addresses; I prefer to read the transcripts the next day.

So I was reading the transcript in the NY Times and saw this section:

“…we must also address the crushing cost of health care.

This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. “

Can that number be accurate? I did a quick calculation: 120 half-minute/hour X 24 hours/day X 365 days/year = 1,051,200 bankruptcies allegedly caused by ” the crushing cost of health care”.

I did a quick Google search to try and find the total number of personal bankruptcies filed last year. The best I could do (so far) is this:

“By the end of the year, the number of personal bankruptcies filed during 2008 could be greater than 1.1 million, the executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute has told the Los Angeles Times.”

So Obama wants us to believe that roughly 95% of all personal bankruptcies are caused by medical costs? I find that hard to swallow. What else did he stretch in his speech?

UPDATE:  I should ALWAYS check NRO/The Corner first!  Here are the relevant numbers:

“…In 2007, the last year data was available, there were just over 822,000 non-business bankruptcies nationwide. But according to a study by Dr. Ning Zhu at UC-Davis, only 5 percent of them were caused by medical bills. That’s only 41,000 medical bankruptcies…”

Went to Fred Reed’s blog, and to my dismay I find that he’s retiring his website! He has several reasons, but this speaks volumes:

“…the hope that, however minor my voice might be, in combination with thousands of others it might engender pressure for slowing the rush into the high-tech medieval twilight that the culture has undertaken.

This by now is clearly quixotic. The civilizational changes we now see are both irremediable and beyond control. The peasantrification and empty glitter of society, pervasive hostility to careful thought, onrushing authoritarianism, and distaste for cultivation are now endemic. I do not know where these lead, but we are assuredly going to get there. Fuming buys nothing.

I have just turned 63. Judging by familial history I have ten to fifteen years left on the planet. I have no intention of spending them railing against the inevitable.”

While I didn’t agree with everything Fred put out there (see my rant here), he writes with a style I much admire, and he is spot on (IMHO) when he takes on the educrats and their failures, as well as the innate differences between men and women. Surfing the intertubes was usually rewarded when I spent an hour or so reading Fred’s columns.

So long Fred. I hope all goes well at Johns Hopkins, and that you return to writing ASAP!

Michael Ledeen at Pajamas Media has a two-part series titled “We Are All Fascists Now”, riffing on the infamous Newsweek cover “We Are All Socialists Now.” It is well worth your time, as are some of the comments.

Part one is here; part two is here.

As I write this, the House of Representatives has passed the final version of the (so-called) stimulus bill. Not a single Republican member voted for it; seven Democrat members voted against it. The bill is currently under debate in the Senate, where it is almost certain to pass. Our Congress will have ushered in a new era in US politics and government. The Feds have never had this much control of the economy outside of a world war.

Conservative talk radio hosts, such as Sean Hannity, tell us that the conservative movement is re-energized. House GOP leaders says the Republican members stood together on and for principle today. The over reach by the Democrats, and the failure of the (so-called) stimulus package will serve as a catalyst to get the GOP back in power in 2010 or 2012.

They’re probably right, but there’s a nagging question in the back of my mind:

Why do we think they’ll cede power peacefully? Fascists rarely do. (I told you it was a paranoid thought.)

I think we are entering another fascist moment in our history, as we did under Wilson, FDR, and LBJ (see Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism). The (so-called) stimulus bill was pushed through without public review, and in direct violation of promises made by congressional leaders and Obama. The mainstream media are in the tank for Obama and his programs. Modern communication makes it possible to assemble a mob in minutes. (Look at the crowds at BHO’s inauguration. Think how they could be turned if BHO doesn’t “succeed” because right-wingers sabotaged him). I believe the Dems will force through an amnesty for illegal immigrants, giving them millions of new voters on the democrat side. They will use every page in their playbook to stay in power.

Remember, they think that power is their birthright, and no one should take it from them. Will we have the iron to do what’s necessary if the time comes? They certainly will.

Nadya Suleman, as everyone knows, recently gave birth to a set of octuplets.  She had undergone fertility treatment and had six embryos implanted, two of which “split”.  After she gave birth, we found out that:

• she is a single mom
• is unemployed
• lives with her parents
• is on welfare (she disputes this, though her explanation is along the lines of “it depends on what ‘is’ means”)
  
• has six other children
• who are cared for by her mother.

Suleman has come under harsh criticism for her decisions and for burdening the taxpayers of California.  Some have questioned if she is mentally unstable.  Many feel her actions is this are “disgusting”.

My question to Suleman’s critics is this:  what about Suleman’s “right to choose” and her “reproductive freedom”?  How do they come into play here?  It seems to me that a woman’s “right to choose” and “reproductive freedom” include the right to have as many children as she desires.  Her marital and employment status should have no bearing on this (or so we’ve been told).

As for the children being a burden on the taxpayers, I seem to recall that during the welfare reform debates in the mid 1990s the “welfare mother” with X number of kids by Y different fathers was a myth, and even if it wasn’t a myth these women need our help and if you don’t agree you’re a racist and misogynist.

So why is everyone bent out of shape about this?  Suleman is exercising her constitutional “right to choose” and “reproductive freedom”.  Leftist should be applauding her!

Unless, of course, a woman’s “right to choose” and “reproductive freedom”only refer to abortion.

Oh, that’s right…they do only refer to abortion.

Never mind, then.  Carry on.

(NOTE:  For the record, I think Suleman has made some incredibly irresponsible choices in her life.  I do no condone her decisions. )