Okay, that's a little hyperbolic, but I couldn't resist watching the House of Representatives advance the progressive ball first kicked off by Teddy Roosevelt another 10 yards downfield, in much the same way I can't resist looking at a car balled up and on fire on the side of the interstate.
Sweden with NASCAR, that's what they want.
progressive agenda gone crazy! They will fall from grace very soon (nov.) when we elect new reps that will actually listen to the peaple.
ReplyDeleteDon't kid yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe republicans will repeal this right after they repeal the New Deal and Great Society...
So what are the options?
ReplyDeleteThe republic has been dying since 1913, when Woodrow Wilson gave us the 16th Amendment (to fund his plunging the US into WWI). This took any potential restraint off the federal government, since it removed any potential control the states had over its purse-strings.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a steady "progression" downhill since, with FDR's "New Deal" (implementing the first real components of socialism), then all of the wage/price controls of WWII (giving us our current health insurance problem), and LBJ's "Great Society".
It doesn't really matter which kind of statist authoritarian is in charge, whether it's a Marxist-type collectivist, or a National Socialist-type collectivist...that, "ratchet, ratchet, ratchet..." effect you mentioned keeps going on, and it's not going to stop until the economy collapses from the sheer drag of more parasites than producers.
Not typing fast enough...Tam, my post was written before yours showed up (you can delete it if it's too much duplication).
ReplyDeleteJoseph,
ReplyDelete"So what are the options?"
Me? Continue trying to keep from combining with oxygen for another 40 years or so.
For the nation? I'd say that the chances of catastrophic economic collapse, possibly followed by balkanization or drastic change in the nature of the government (Pres. Nehemiah Scudder after a Weimar-like inflation?) have slightly but measurably increased.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves; nations are not sitcoms. We don't always go back to status quo ante to the happy sounds of the laugh track right before the credits roll. In living memory, Russia, Germany, France, and Italy, among others, have all seen convulsive changes in the fabric of their nations. It can happen here. It has once already.
You know, at least when you're looking at a flaming wreck on the side of the interstate, you know that someone is actually going to try to make it right (i.e., prevent too much collateral damage).
ReplyDeleteThis is more like driving by it and slowing down long enough to toss on a couple gallons of gasoline while pointing and laughing at the screaming family trapped inside.
The one image that sticks with me from the collapse of the Soviet Union and resulting revolutions hither and yon is the tank firing a round into some generic office-ish building and seeing the papers flutter out the far side. Is that going to be happening here? At $DEPARTMENT?
I hope not. But wishes ain't fishes and the sea ain't full, hope is a thing with feathers, etc etc.
Yeah, except in your metaphor, I'm trapped in the wreck, too.
ReplyDeleteExactly - When I see the flaming wreck or a burning T-62 I always think, at least it's not me and mine.
ReplyDeleteThis time we are all in the wreck. The fact that the Democrats are going to burn first is of little comfort.
"The republicans will repeal this right after they repeal the New Deal and Great Society..."
ReplyDeleteNot a single Republican voted for this disaster.
It was the Republicans that instituted welfare reform under Clinton; it was Republican President that attempted to privatize Social Security.
Daddy is trying to fix the car, but it will take time no matter how loud you yell or how hard you punch your sister.
Shootin' Buddy
"Daddy is trying to fix the car..."
ReplyDeleteDaddy promised to get rid of the Department of Education on the campaign trail thirty years ago.
Little kids wait for Daddy to fix things; grownups don't need Daddy.
Well, folks, come 2014 I'll be closing the solo medical practice that my wife and I started back in 2001. My debts will be settled and we should have enough of a nest egg to get us by.
ReplyDeleteI did not go into this profession to be governed by Federal "guidelines" in how to care for my patients, to surrender every vestige of patient confidentiality to a faceless auditor, or to risk a punitive drop in my reimbursements because I made too many referrals to a specialist. Dr Galt will no longer be answering his pages.
What to do then? I'll continue to work as a contractor at a doc-in-a-box as it suits me. I hear Australia and New Zealand are always looking for locums to answer their socialism-driven doctor shortages.
Since it isn't illegal (yet) I may even return to doing house calls. If you look around, you may find a good many of us willing to do the same thing.
One of my more gratifying moments in medicine came when I treated a cash pay patient for cellulitis he contracted after scuffing his elbows at the range. He paid me in .223 handloads.
Best shooting ammo I've ever fired.
SB,
ReplyDeleteGrow up and be your age. Seriously, dude, the Republicans are only against wastrel spending and trashing the Constitution when they aren't in power. When they are in power, they grab for more more more more every chance they get.
Don't expect us to return to the abusive boyfriend just because THIS time he promises not to slap us around again. We've been down that road, and we didn't like it.
"A fight is not what you want it to be, it just is."
ReplyDelete...and the greatest tactical sin is trying to fight the last war.
I think my own answer is somewhere on the continnum between Texas secession and moving to Costa Rica/Panama. Iceland is still too cold, volcanoes or no. Estonia is doing well, too.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Rabbit.
Every time I see the Democrats celebrating healthcare, I think of this scene:
ReplyDeletewww.youtube.com/watch?v=GNAHjsAnTd4
"Not a single Republican voted for this disaster."
ReplyDelete...and what an easy and painless vote that was, since it was going to pass with or without them.
I'll bet that the blankie with the little elephants on it is all warm and snuggly at a time like this. I'll bet it smells just like No Child Left Behind PATRIOT Part D!
You know I have a Karl Rove Snuggie on one couch and a Peyton Manning Snuggie on the other in the living room.
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy
what are the options?
ReplyDeleteOh, I dunno...
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-all-modern-sons-of-liberty-this-is.html
"Daddy is trying to fix the car"
ReplyDelete"Daddy had to deal with a Democratic Congress as well as the foreign communists in the USSR"
I remember early on in the Clinton administration, some guy stood up in front of Bill Clinton, saying something to the effect that "you're the president, so you're like the father and we're your children." I also remember folks on the right being aghast at such an attitude. How disheartening that some allegedly on the side of less government would take the same tack, only deigning to play the role of Daddy instead of the role of the kids. And if indeed they don't want that, then I daresay the above rhetoric has no place in the debate. Unless the purveyors of such want everyone else to tell them to go fuck themselves.
So did you really mean Teddy Roosevelt or did you mean to refer to FDR?
ReplyDeleteIf what you say is true, please post a history lesson. I kinda thought Teddy was not so bad. (At least compared to his idiot cousin, anyway)
Teddy seized all of the unclaimed land in the country for the federal government.
ReplyDeleteUsed to be able to claim 20 unused acres anywhere and build a home on it.
Not after that.
"So did you really mean Teddy Roosevelt or did you mean to refer to FDR?"
ReplyDeleteRead it and weep.
Then go find a Republican Teddy fan and kick them in the junk for lying to you all these years.
That's the reason I refer to him as "the less bad Roosevelt" and not "the good Roosevelt"...
Bram, not that long ago, I recall the Libs screaming about how the new-n-improved Star Wars trilogy was a metaphor for the Bush Admin, what with the warmongering and PATRIOT Act... now it seems much more appropriate to liken it to the current fools.
ReplyDeleteNow that at least some of our pols have falllen on their swords, they unfortunately have a dying breath left amd the procedure by which to use it to cause a big wind to add air to the fuel of their funeral pyre.
ReplyDeleteYes, Cap-and-trade -- which even Dr. James Hansen said in an Australian interview is "hokey" -- can be passed the same way, largely by the same people.
The republic has been dying since 1913, when Woodrow Wilson gave us the 16th Amendment
ReplyDeleteSince 1861 when Lincoln ended the republic of the states and replaced it with a centralized and powerful federal government.
It's all been downhill since the 'glory' of the first republican.
"Not a single Republican voted for this disaster."
ReplyDeleteThey may not have voted for it, but do you really expect them to vote to repeal it now that it's passed? Especially once there's an active bureaucracy working to protect their turf?
Also, how long before the Health Care Administration (or whatever it ends up being called) has their own SWAT team - like, for instance, the Dept of Education?
"They may not have voted for it, but do you really expect them to vote to repeal it now that it's passed?"
ReplyDeleteYes, just like the House Republicans voted to repeal the AWB in the mid-90s after winning the '94 elections. It still has to get through the Senate and then be signed by President Palin.
Shootin' Buddy
If I were a doctor I might be considering a transition into the wholesale Wookie suit trade...You know, something with a future.
ReplyDelete----------------------------
WV - pollmyol
A new prescription medication that promises to cure chronic sufferer's of Democratic Polling Deficit Disorder.
Fortunately the National People's Health-care Rationing Committee has unanimously declared it free and mandatory for immediate distribution to the masses.
"Yes, just like the House Republicans voted to repeal the AWB in the mid-90s after winning the '94 elections. It still has to get through the Senate and then be signed by President Palin."
ReplyDelete...and then the Tooth Fairy will eliminate Medicare Plan D!
You kids stop arguing about Santa Claus back there.
If daddy is trying to fix the car then why is he naked in the backseat with a hooker?
ReplyDelete"Not a single Republican voted for this disaster." In a One-Party state (like California for example) the "Stupid Party" is just a fig-leaf for the perpetual war between Oceania and Eurasia - or if you throw in Ron Paul, East-Pluto.
Now we are all in a One-Party state - like East Germany, the Deutsche Democratik Republik - another One-Party state that called themselves "Democratic."
I guess this is good news for Kanada. All of the (trained at taxpayer expense) Kanucki docs that went south to get rich, will be coming back up here. This will go a long way to relieving our doctor shortage.
ReplyDeleteThe republic has been dying since 1913, when Woodrow Wilson gave us the 16th Amendment
ReplyDeleteSince 1861 when Lincoln ended the republic of the states and replaced it with a centralized and powerful federal government.
Since the Whiskey Rebellion. ;-)
If those elected in November, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, whatever, repeal this clusterfuck, then it will be the first time since Cincinnatus that a government voluntarily gave up power. For the last 15 years or so the Republicans have been reading too much of their own press and taking the old Socialist excuse of, "It can work as long as we're the ones implementing it because we're smarter than those who tried before us" to heart.
ReplyDelete