Merry Christmas?

Earlier this morning the Senate passed their version of Obamacare. The train is rolling along at high speed, horns blowing, and your late-model sedan is stalled on the tracks and your seatbelt is stuck. From the AP article posted earlier this morning and subsequently scrubbed to remove any allusions to their single payer government run health care agenda: "Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill in a climactic Christmas Eve vote that could define President Barack Obama's legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the country's history."

Much longer wait times, doctor shortages, procedures, operations and medicines denied by a government cost control board, massive cuts in resources and funding and the destruction of innovation-based medical advancement...
Much higher health insurance premiums, greatly increased tax burdens, a federally enforced purchase mandate punishable by fines and jail time...
Crushing debt as far as the eyes of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can see and the slow, devastatingly excruciating death of the concept of the "American Dream"...
Merry Christmas indeed.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama. Your place in history is secure. You will forever be remembered as the man who destroyed America.

The Center-Left Shift

Why are the Obama Democrats pushing health care legislation the Wall Street Journal called "The Worst Bill Ever?"
Why is the Democrat leadership forcing a bill "so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve?"
Why do Democrat leaders need to buy votes for a complete overhaul of a health care system claimed to be in such crisis as to threaten our very survival? Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson got a sweetheart deal, the "Cornhusker Kickback." Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu got fat stacks of cash, the "Louisiana Purchase." Not to mention Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's pay-for-play school subsidy sweepstakes...
Why are Democrat leaders so apparently willing to sacrifice seats in Congress and to pass legislation that more than half of the American public viscerally oppose?
The answer can be found in President Obama's own words when he promised to "fundamentally transform the United States of America." We're starting to see exactly what he meant.
The United States has throughout its history traditionally been considered a "center-right" country, meaning a nation that relies on the power of the Individual to achieve, to drive innovation and economic growth and provide the cultural foundation for our society. Our wealth and prosperity are grounded in a generally religious worldview that celebrates and encourages the sense of hard work, entrepreneurial risk and accompanying reward, and the protection of values such as a respect for life and a strong traditional family. Tradition is not a dirty word and can exist peacefully with benign progress such as technological advancement and educational improvement.
The culture of the Progressive Left, however, is much less concerned with traditional center-right values. How many times have we heard President Obama impudently dismiss the "failed ideas of the past?" In order to achieve Progressive Enlightenment, the culture must be changed. There's an old saying, "To change the country, first you must change the culture."
We have seen the cultural transformation occurring in this country for decades. From the Summer of Love to the drug culture of the Eighties; to the proliferation of sexual content in television, movies and music to the sexualization of adolescents in school halls and parentless homes; to the glamorization of recreational drug use, today's cultural center has shifted to the left. Self-reliance and self-control have become laziness and self-indulgence.
The Left has been waging this battle over the center of the country for a century. It is the struggle of the American body politic between more government or less, more economic market regulation or less, more restriction of personal freedom or less. The current health care recklessness is ultimately the final blatant, arrogant, autocratic attempt of the Left to permanently shift the United States from its traditional center-right to the left. It is the framework, a means to an end.
The end result is a left-leaning, European style governance which assumes centralized governmental authority rather than individual empowerment. The concept of self-determination and rugged individualism is eliminated in favor of political group-movement and communal collectivism.
The argument will no longer be about how much government intervention is appropriate in citizens' private lives. Rather, much like European politics, governmental intrusion is assumed, and opposition will bicker over which party can better manage centralized, top-down market regulation, massive bureaucracy administration and entitlement distribution. Once this health care entitlement is installed and the federal government will inevitably by design have no choice but to intervene in the market, the argument is no longer "Should we have the federal government provide health care?" but "Which party will provide your government health care better?" No longer is the question, "Should the federal government intrude in your personal private life in this way and to this extent?" but "How should the federal government intervene in your personal private life and which party will intervene better?"
This is goal of the Obamacrats, to install a permanent, monolithic entitlement that completely eliminates Conservatives' ability to appeal to the innate desire of all people for personal freedom and to exercise that desire for freedom in the voting booth. Self-indulgence and generous entitlements have the amazing ability to guarantee power for the providers of entitlement benefits. That "freedom" thing? Who needs it when your governmental benefactors provide?
Change we can believe in? "Fundamental transformation" from free citizen to slave.

Tom Coburn: The Health Bill Is Scary - WSJ.com

From Dr. Tom Coburn, Senator from Oklahoma --
"When the government asserts the power to provide care, it also asserts the power to deny care."

Tom Coburn: The Health Bill Is Scary - WSJ.com

The Conceit of Power.

When will we learn? To borrow a cliche, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Case in point -- the current "climate change crisis" and global government.
For years we have been told that our very existence hinges in the balance unless we constrict our emission of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular. Never mind the fact that CO2 is absolutely essential to life on this planet. How many trees and plants will go extinct upon reduction of the very element necessary to their growth? How will reducing CO2 affect green plants' ability to provide the oxygen we need to breathe? Regardless, according to the "experts" the climate crisis threatens our extinction.
We have seen that the climate change crisis is in large part global redistribution of wealth -- taking from the haves and giving to the have nots.
But wait, there's more...
According to a report by the U.K. Guardian, a leaked document drafted by a select few participants of the Copenhagen climate change summit proposes handing power to control global climate change regulation and financing over to a few wealthy countries including the United States, the U.K., and Denmark. Developing countries are understandably furious.
According to the report:
"The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as 'the circle of commitment' — but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark — has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions (emphasis added)."
The progressive agenda is centralized control over many by few. This interventionist world view determines only enlightened progressives working within the power and scope of a broad, far reaching Government can fix the problems and solve the injustices of society on a personal, national, and even global level. But this world view is also dependent upon perpetuating a class system of sorts which ensures the wealthy and powerful permanently retain their elite position of influence over the poor and subjugated.
Perhaps it is time to take all those "New World Order" conspiracy theories seriously. There is no question there is a progressive element of society which vigorously supports the idea of a global governance by which wealth and resources are distributed from richer to poorer nations and through which laws and treaties are drafted and enforced. Climate change is a mechanism to achieve that goal. Given this report that conclusion holds greater merit. This also ensures an even greater divide between the few extremely wealthy and powerful and the rest of the populace likely in near poverty, and most definitely powerless. Government can not provide for anyone without taking from everyone.
The powerful few with control of regulation and finance can distribute wealth, technology, opportunity and, ultimately, freedom on a global scale as they see fit.

Robin Hood goes global.

"Steal from the rich, give to the poor."
The motive behind the global climate change movement has been revealed as nothing more than global redistribution of wealth, as the AP reported Sunday. According to U.N climate chief Yvo de Boer, "Rich countries must put at least $10 billion a year on the table to kick-start immediate action up to 2012."
Apparently those of us in the modern, developed world were all wrong for using fossil fuels to achieve the highest standard of living and greatest wealth in the history of the world. In doing so we must have committed some great atrocity against the rest of the world and must be punished. For shame!
What is the answer? Take from the rich in the form of punitive taxation, and give to the poor to grease the wheels of like minded progressive governance. The World Bank estimates it will cost wealthier nations $75 to $100 billion per year for the next 40 years to "assist" the poorer nations. Some of those poorer nations would like upwards of $350 billion per year.
The green crowd has been pushing for punitive taxation to punish the perceived damage industrialized countries supposedly cause the planet's environment and prop up undeveloped and underdeveloped countries for decades, much to the delight of the poorer countries. This time they are flaunting their intentions openly as they unabashedly perpetuate the global climate change myth. And, really, who is going to say no to free money? Who won't continue to demand more? According to the report, if poor countries aren't offered enough, it could jeopardize the whole climate change conference.
Interestingly, however, the green movement wishes to prop them up only to a point. Poorer countries will use money from the wealthier countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Green technology for all! You may, however, have to forgo such luxuries as turning your lights on when you want to. The incredible technological, societal and economical developments that coal, oil and natural gas enable are too damaging to the environment. The unimaginable leaps and bounds developed countries have enjoyed because of fossil fuels must be hindered for developing countries. Rather, still inefficient wind, solar energy, and fat stacks of cash will have to suffice.
So what will all this redistributed money do? According to the AP article, the initial "kick-start" money "would go to 'capacity building' — training, planning, getting a fix on needs, local emissions and related concerns." Sounds like slush funding on a global level. Furthermore, "upfront money would also help rebuild trust between the rich north and poor south, eroded by years of relative inaction on climate, particularly by the United States."
Generally speaking, I am not opposed to the idea of offering financial assistance to developing countries in the form of a loan or perhaps a stipend of some sort. As a wealthy country we have the option of generosity. We can choose to assist developing countries with resources to build infrastructure, propel scientific discovery and build up businesses to create jobs and raise the standard of living.
And as an aside, all the furor over businesses and jobs moving overseas, then, is puzzling. Isn't that what we want? Better conditions for all? In the worldview of progressives if private industry rather than government is doing it, it's wrong. Furthermore, the way progressives equalize is to bring down, rather than raise up. After all, citizens who have the means to provide for themselves are much more difficult to control.
Blaming yourself for the supposed ills caused another country based on science that despite claims is anything but settled is ridiculous. Promising to write a blank check based on science which at best is still unsettled and at worst is a complete hoax, is just stupid.
Funny how Robin Hood wears the color green...