VDH discusses European vs American Morality

Victor Davis Hanson knows so well how to say what anyone with a sense of decency innately knows. From NRO:

A Teachable Moment on American-European Faultlines
By Victor Davis Hanson
The full story is not out on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and he is innocent of forcible sexual battery until proven guilty, but already the case has exposed an ancient abyss between European elite and American popular cultures — accentuated by the differences between New York’s rough-and-tumble media and legal worlds on one hand and IMF technocracy and French privilege on the other. There are also questions of race and asymmetrical power in play, as well as the notion that an IMF head should adopt at least a façade of probity and sacrifice, given that his organization lectures tens of millions on fiscal sobriety and belt-tightening.

So far what confuses Americans the most, superficially at least, is that a man of the Left like socialist Strauss-Kahn should seem so comfortable with the elite tastes of the damnable aristocracy — the astronomically priced suits, the $3,000-a-night suite, the Air France privileges, and the medieval Norman baron’s sense of entitlement regarding an immigrant housecleaner — while the supposedly neanderthal, right-wing Americans and their primitive “accusatory” legal system (read the French press on all that) so far are treating the rights of a maid as equal to a Eurocrat’s.

The wonder about the French cultural furor over the incident is not that they consider us parochial and “hung up” on sex, but that the press and its op-ed writers are so blatant in their expressions of class snobbery and national chauvinism. For all the Euro-lectures about Western imperialist colonialism, this story (fairly or unfairly) casts the Americans as the everyman and the French as the haughty technocrat furious that rules of equality under the law apply to him — not to mention modern notions of feminism, about which one would have expected a sophisticated Frenchman to be sensitive.

One also might have thought the French press would have taken more note of the angle that a foreign national accused of committing several felonies is drawing on considerable power, influence, and money in his legal contest with an immigrant maid from Africa. Instead, in French press accounts, one distills a veritable caricature: “How dare those backward Americans do this? Do they have any idea of who Strauss-Kahn is and what he represents, or how we civilized and sophisticated Europeans deal with these dime-a-dozen sort of low-rent sexual accusations against men of culture from mere chambermaids?”

A book also needs to be written about the psychology that drives elites to push for socialism or statism for others even though it would eventually end the easy affluence that they assume as near birthrights for themselves. A Strauss-Kahn suit, a jaunt to Vail, Martha’s Vineyard, or Costa del Sol — these are not only at odds with the notion of a state-mandated equality of result, they are themselves just dessert fruits of capitalism that would wither on the vine if socialism were fully enacted.

What is it that gives powerful people who think we should all provide for others, on their say so, yet they are so arrogant.

We knew the press was liberal but this gives the facts of how it got that way

From Pajama's Media:

America’s Marxist Media
For them, truth doesn't work like it does for you and me.
by David B. Jenkins

To think that two and two are four
And neither five nor three
The heart of man has long been sore
And long ‘tis like to be.
– A.E. Houseman, Last Poems, xxv

It has by now become glaringly apparent to all but the most obtuse or thoroughly indoctrinated among us that a majority of the members of the mainstream media (I call them cockroach media, but we’ll come back to that later) are socialists in outlook and practice. As Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote in an article for Pajamas Media on August 28, 2010, “We now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our formerly august mainstream media is replete with socialists.”

In the interest of clarity, though, let’s not use the word “socialists,” a term that has become somewhat socially acceptable in certain quarters and to that extent masks the radicalism of their ideas. Socialists are Marxists, so let’s call them what they are: Marxists.

How did the mainstream media get to be the way they are? To find the answer, let’s turn to an old source.

Helen MacInnes was a Scottish-born novelist whose writing career spanned nearly four and a half decades. Most of her 21 novels dealt with the struggle against totalitarianism. During World War II, she wrote stirring novels of the fight against Nazi Germany. After the conclusion of that war, while other writers were busily plotting stories of the threat of a reincarnated Nazism, she was among the first to understand that communism, with its subversive hooks already well set in the upper levels of many governments, including ours, represented a far greater threat to human freedom.

In her 1951 book Neither Five nor Three, she uses her writer’s skills masterfully to create a gripping and entertaining story that is at the same time a chilling description of the methods the left used to take almost complete control of a once-noble institution: the American media. By undermining, discrediting, and marginalizing honest reporters, writers, and editors, the left gradually replaced them with people who would oh-so-subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) parrot the Party line.
.........
When did the subversion process begin? It probably began with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and was certainly well underway in the 1930s. A prime early example of the manipulation of U.S public opinion by the media was America’s sellout of China to the communists in the 1940s. James Perloff writes in The New American that “a plethora of books and news reports perpetuated the myth that Mao’s communists were ‘democratic agrarian reformers.’”

Read the rest it is interesting and doesn't even address the recent past of how the media attacked George W Bush and made way for the impostor of a patriot who is our current president.

How deep into socialism are we? Pretty deep!

FIGURES… SEIU Is Partner With Obama’s Conservation Youth Corps
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, March 26, 2011, 6:47 PM

Big Government Socialists Never Sleep—
Just when you thought this radical administration was ready to cut back on their socialist agenda they surprise you with another shockingly radical initiative.

Team Obama announced this week the formation of their American Conservation Youth Corps.

Read it all here at Gateway Pundit.  You can tell by my labels what I think of this.  I actually knew a man who was in Hitler Youth.  It was not fun, it was be like the rest or else.

We need some recruiters for our cause to combat this

I've seen this in scattered readings this morning but I am presenting the LA Times article here.  It is one of the most bold, aggressives moves I have ever seen to be put forward to keep our "grand leader" in place. 

Obama recruits an army of community organizers to carry his 'movement forward for years to come'
The community organizer who became president has launched a massive pre-reelection year campaign to assemble and train an army of new community organizers to carry Obama's "movement forward for years to come."

Strengthening "our democracy" presumably has something to do with reelecting the revered leader in 2012.

However, the recruiting message says nothing about politics or election campaigns and strangely talks in military terms of "a grassroots program that aims to put boots on the ground and help foster a new generation of leaders -- not just to help win elections but to strengthen our democracy in communities across the country."

The message about what it calls the "Summer Organizing Fellowship" adds: "Effective organizing doesn't happen in a vacuum. It takes commitment, time, and hard work to build a movement around a cause." It does not specify what the "cause" is, other than promoting Obama and his agenda.

News of the community organizer drive went out in an e-mail to millions of supporters and past donors Tuesday night by the ongoing arm of the Obama campaign, Organizing for America.

It appealed for workers of all ages to volunteer to undergo professional organizational training this summer for stationing in communities all over the nation to drive President Obama's social and political agenda.

The cadres "will be assigned to a specific community," the message informs, "where they'll work to organize supporters street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood."

Their job will involve recruiting additional Obama workers, running Obama-related events, knocking on doors to talk of Obama "and lay new groundwork to carry this movement forward for years to come."

"In the end," the Obama campaign appeal says of the community organizer corps, "their work will take our grassroots power to an impressive new level."

The appeal cites as one role model Nikki Giancola who underwent the training, then quit her middle school teacher's job to become a regional Obama field director and the satisfaction she felt "in helping millions of people."

Another community organizer, Paras Patel, tells of one unforgettable moment actually meeting the leader for whom they all labor, President Obama. "He shook my hand," Patel recounts, "and told me that he was proud of me."

No mention of an Obama organizer flag, uniform -- or salute.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Americans, be afraid, be very afraid.

I don't really believe this will increase our security, just decrease our privacy

We have to stop this way of thinking!!

White House Preparing National Online ID Plan

The proposed system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the web at the transactional level will require an identity ecosystem.

By Mathew J. Schwartz, in InformationWeek

The Obama administration is set to propose a new system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the Web. The online authentication and identity management system would be targeted at the transactional level -- for example, when someone logs into their banking website or completes an online e-commerce purchase.

Making such a system effective, however, will require creating an "identity ecosystem," backed by extensive public/private cooperation, said White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, delivering the opening keynote speech at the Symantec Government Symposium 2010 in Washington on Tuesday.

"This strategy cannot exist in isolation," he said. "It's going to take all of us working together." Furthermore, "we should not have to dramatically change the way we do business -- this should be a natural path forward," he said.

That path forward will hinge on a new draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, due to be released Friday for the first time to the public, for a three-week comment period. Formerly known as the National Strategy for Secure Online Transactions, the report offers specific strategy and implementation recommendations, and may also recommend more sweeping policy and privacy changes.

The report builds on the Obama-commissioned Cyberspace Policy Review, which analyzed the government's information and communications infrastructure defensive capabilities. One of the report's recommendations was to "build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation."

Simply issuing a Web-friendly biometric identification card to everyone in the country, of course, wouldn't necessarily make anyone or anything more secure, including online transactions. As the report also notes, to be effective, security tools and technology must be complemented by education. "There is always a necessity to do awareness and education of the end user," said Schmidt. "But you're not trying to teach the end user how to be a security expert."

Folks, this is so important I copied the whole thing. Thanks to Jim Little for sending me the link.

A Must read from Bookroom Room on Socialism and the American Attitudes to it

They have eyes, but cannot see — the conundrum of American attitudes towards socialism

by Bookworm

Before the 1970s (give or take a decade) the vast majority of Americans viewed socialism as a profoundly anti-American phenomenon. Red scares started in the immediate wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and America’s dislike for socialism, especially under the guise of communism, continued unabated through the first two thirds of the Vietnam War.

The temperature of the fear rose and fell, with some years witnessing a passive dislike for the red menace and other years erupting in active worries about America’s continued well-being as world socialism came a’knockin’ (thing HUAC). Whether the fear was hot or cold, though, that deep suspicion always ran strong and true through the American bedrock. Simply put, Americans were pretty darn sure that communism/socialism was a bad thing.

What’s so interesting, looking back on America’s decades-long hate affair with socialism, is that during all those years Americans hadn’t actually seen socialism in action. Sure, they knew it sparked revolutions in Russia and China, but those were tightly closed societies, so the full horrors visited on those countries’ citizens were invisible to most Americans.

This woman always has a long, well reasoned article on things I believe but can in no way articulate.  Read this, it's good.

Income Redistribution Soars, so do our tax bills

Private pay shrinks to historic lows

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

      Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

      At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

     Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

     The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.

We were forewarned, we knew that is what he wanted to do.  We MUST get enough people elected to stop this change of our country from free enterpise to socialism, or worse.

How Many? Surely this is not all.

From Canada Free Press via Lucianne.com:

Government Funded Front Groups

By Dr. Robert R. Owens

How many Progressive groups are in reality government supported entities masquerading as public interest lobbies? How many government agencies act as Progressive lobbies? Marx said “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”

Is our hard-earned tax money being used to fulfill the words of the Progressive’s secular messiah? Another old saying goes, “The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” If the tree is the Progressive clique that’s captured America the acorn is the government money used by various Progressive fronts, both public and private to advocate for more money from the treasury to buy more power. Or is that more rope?

ACORN...(ed. note now out in new and expanded agencies)

Fannie and Freddie...

Planned Parenthood...

The Service Employees International Union...

The National Endowment for the Arts...

I can think of more than this.  How many can you think of?  Read the rest of the article. Then let me know in the comments if you can name some more.

Are We All Socialists Now?

I don't think so. But apparently Al Sharpton does. This from Gateway Pundit:
Democratic Leader Al Sharpton: “The Dream Is to Make Everything Equal in Everybody’s House”

Last month Al Sharpton claimed, “Americans overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected Barack Obama.”

On Sunday the Democratic Leader stuck to his socialist theme. Sharpton told a congregation in Connecticut, “The dream was to make everything equal in everybody’s house”

Go here for the video.

Frank Meile in the Daily Inter Lake (Montana) via Lucianne:

Just who do they think they own?

I have for some time been looking for a model to describe the relationship that currently exists between the people and the federal government. At different times, I have labeled it as feudalism, serfdom or slavery.

None of them is quite right, and yet they all hint at the problem — the American people, who ostensibly still pride themselves on freedom have long since been co-opted as nothing more than a labor force by their masters in Washington.

This is a fact known to one and all, but for some reason, of late it has been treated like a crazy uncle — the less said about it the better. But that was not always true. President Reagan often warned against letting the government control too much of your life. In his farewell address to the nation in 1989, he said this:

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”

You will want to read all of this.

Two for one -Financial Reform and A Socialist Machine

More from the Washington Post:
The best financial reform? Let the bankers fail
By James Grant
The trouble with Wall Street isn't that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor -- really, suitably poor -- in the busts. To the titans of finance go the upside. To we, the people, nowadays, goes the downside. How much better it would be if the bankers took the losses just as they do the profits.
Happily, there's a ready-made and time-tested solution. Let the senior financiers keep their salaries and bonuses, and let them do with their banks what they will. If, however, their bank fails, let the bankers themselves fail. Let the value of their houses, cars, yachts, paintings, etc. be assigned to the firm's creditors. Read the rest

Newt has his say:

How America became a 'secular-socialist machine'

An April 14 op-ed by Norman J. Ornstein, "The great 'socialist' smear," argued that to those "outside the partisan and ideological wars," it is "bizarre" to accuse the Obama administration of "radicalism, socialism, retreat and surrender." I was among those he cited, for having called Barack Obama "the most radical president in American history" and describing the goals of the left and its methods of operation as a "secular-socialist machine."

In fact, Ornstein has it exactly backward. It is only from the perspective of the cultural elite that the left-wing governing of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team could be seen as moderate.

Arthur Brooks, who is the president of the American Enterprise Institute (where Ornstein and I both serve), has analyzed years of Gallup data to show that America is largely (70-30) a center-right country. Polling by American Solutions, a citizen action network I founded in 2007, shows that on issues such as producing more American energy, cutting taxes to create jobs, balancing the budget by cutting spending, English as the language of government, and more, Americans oppose the views of academic elites by 75 to 85 percent. And a recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 52 percent of Americans think the Obama administration's actions are leading America more toward socialism (38 percent disagree). Read the rest:

We ARE definitely fighting a culture of dependency

Michael Barone explains it in the Washington Examiner:

Tea parties fight Obama's culture of dependence

"Do you realize," CNN's Susan Roesgen asked a man at the April 15, 2009, tea party in Chicago, "that you're eligible for a $400 credit?" When the man refused to drop his "drop socialism" sign, she went on, "Did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion out of the stimulus?"

Roesgen is no longer with CNN, and CNN has only about half as many viewers as it did last year. But her questions are revealing. They help us understand that the issue on which our politics has become centered -- the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government -- is really not just about economics. It is really a battle about culture, a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence.

Read it all.

VDH on Socialism - coming to a country near you

From National Review Online

Chicago Does Socialism

Connect the dots of Obama’s first year in office, and an ugly picture emerges.

We can have a rational debate on any one item on President Obama’s vast progressive agenda, arguing whether adjectives like “statist” or “socialist” fairly describe his legislative intent. But connect all the dots and lines of the past year, and an unambiguous image starts to materialize.

NEW PROGRAMS

The problem is not individual legislation, whether passed or proposed, involving the gamut of issues: health care, bailouts, stimuli, education loans, amnesty, cap and trade. Rather, the rub is these acts in the aggregate.

The president promises a state fix for health care; then student loans; and next energy. There are to be subsidies, credits, and always new entitlements for every problem, all requiring hordes of fresh technocrats and Civil Service employees. Like a perpetual teenager, who wants and buys but never produces, the president is focused on the acquisitive and consumptive urges, never on the productive — as in how all his magnanimous largesse is to be paid for by someone else.

As usual his articles are clear and to the point and unfortunately for our country,
way too true.  Read it all. 

About Cuba - it is Way Past the Time for This

From Investors Business Daily:

Bell Tolls For Cuba

Tyranny: The death of a dissident on a hunger strike last month is still sending shock waves to Cuba's regime. Cuba's global support is falling away — and President Obama's surprise slam at Havana is one of many.

It may be the end of the Cuban regime, but something changed when Orlando Tamayo Zapata, a political prisoner, died in a hunger strike last month. Tamayo, a construction worker, was arrested in the 2003 "Black Spring" wave of arrests against 75 democracy activists, drawing a sentence of 25 years. His hunger strike called attention to the plight of Cuba's political prisoners.

When the Castro regime let him die, they assumed that his demise was the end of it and he'd be forgotten, same as all the others.

But it didn't happen that way. Inside Cuba, other dissidents began hunger strikes. The Castroites also beat up dissident wives known as Ladies in White, who marched to protest the arrests of the 75.

There are signs that the regime is running scared since the death, but the biggest impact seems to be coming from abroad.

Outgoing President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica unexpectedly lashed out first against Tamayo's death. Brazil's center-right opposition, in the heat of a coming election, blasted Brazil's outgoing president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, for backslapping with the Castro brothers in Havana the day the dissident died. Opposition politicians in Spain and Argentina also criticized their own governments for aiding the regime. And in Spain, a poll by Elcano Royal Institute released Thursday showed that 72% of Spaniards believe there's not enough international human rights pressure on Cuba.

Another blow came Monday, when Chilean President Sebastian Pinera declared: "My government will do whatever it can to re-establish democracy in Cuba."

Even more striking, Chile's opposition socialist parties condemned for the first time Cuba's treatment of its political prisoners. In the past, the socialists had always looked the other way.

Now the cultural establishment is stepping up: Prominent entertainers like actor Andy Garcia, singer Gloria Estefan, actress Maria Conchita Alonso and others are leading rallies and showing films that are critical of the Castro regime.

Chilean novelist Isabel Allende appealed for the release of the political prisoners. In Spain, film director Pedro Almodovar and novelist Mario Vargas Llosa wrote an open letter to Castro called "I accuse the Cuban government."

In light of this, President Obama's added voice to growing global calls for human rights in Cuba is powerful, even if it's just following the crowd. It means that the international apologists on the left who've justified Castro over the years are growing scarce, leaving Castro's regime isolated — and perhaps answerable for its crimes.

There is a reason, a very good reason, people have risked their lives to leave Cuba in whatever would float.  Some even drifted off course and were pulled ashore in Corpus Christi some years ago.  The fact that so many have died trying to get to the United States, Mexico and wherever they could, is proof of how bad it is in Cuba. Pray this regime is over soon.

For an ongoing chronicle on Cuba see Babalu Blog.

Even Zambia Realizes We are on the Wrong Track

Booker Rising is a Black Moderate/Conservative site that does with Black conservatives what I am doing here, taking the good stuff and posting  so others can see it.  It is a site I check every day.
Here it has

CHANDA CHISALA COMMENTARY: The End Of The Great American Experiment

The Zambian libertarian journalist slams U.S. President Barack Obama's attack on American exceptionalism: "Barack Obama’s biggest problem is just a lack of knowledge of history. He has a very innocent and aggressively passionate ignorance about him. I don’t think he knows that his ideas have been common in every society in the world. He speaks as if he’s made a novel discovery. What he doesn’t know is that the USA became the greatest nation in history precisely because it departed from the common economic structure of the rest of the world. Whereas every society in history has thought that it is the noble duty of the state or king or chief to economically provide for all the people and to ensure that no one lacked in any basic needs (by ensuring that no individual had 'too much' or 'too little'), America invented a counterintuitive system of making human achievement a private matter. Every man was to have the inviolable right of pursuing his own happiness. The 'king' was to stay out of the way."

When a commenter in Zambia can see what is happening way over here I think it is time for all the commentators over here to sit up and take note.  Read the rest in Booker Rising here.
Read the original here.

Socialism - Are we There Yet?

This is quite a discussion in today's news.  Here are a few of them.

First from the Washington Post, Richard Cohen wants to be more like the European nations.  I wonder if he considers why we are made up of so many immingrants from those countries. Of course, his first words are a slam at Mitch McConnell.

The health-care vote: One more step on a long, slow journey

Mitch McConnell is right. The Republican Senate leader, a man whose vision is to deny others theirs, told the New York Times that President Obama's health-care proposal was part of an attempt to "turn us into a Western European country," which, the good Lord willing, is what will now happen. I, for one, could use a dash of Germany, where there are something like 200 private health insurance plans and where everyone is covered and no one goes broke on account of bad health. It's great to be healthy in America, but for too many Americans, it's better to be sick somewhere else.

Next up, Tony Blankley in the Washington Times:

BLANKLEY: Sunday's socialist triumph

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday launched the Democrats' argument for the health care bill, claiming, "This is an American proposal that honors the traditions of our country." Does that suggest that opposition is un-American? And what are the traditions that are American that this law fulfills? The Democrats argue that the bill fulfills the "right" of all Americans to government-assured health care services. The congressional Democrats claim many other things that a majority of the country believes to be inconsistent with truth and reality.

So, considering the rhetorical onslaught that is about to be unleashed on the public, to paraphrase (and with the deepest apologies to) Winston Churchill on the occasion of the fall of France in June 1940:

What House Minority Leader John A. Boehner has called the Battle of Capitol Hill is over. I expect that the Battle of the Electorate is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of a nonsocialist America. Upon it depends our own American way of life and the long continuity of our institutions and our history. The whole fury and might of the media and the Democratic Party must very soon be trained on the electorate. Read it all.

In Big Government Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) writes:

Laying the cornerstone of a Socialist Utopia

Sunday, the House passed Speaker Pelosi’s vision of healthcare in America. Here is why I voted “no” and why the American people should re-examine the Democratic leadership of our nation.  Read it here. via Lucianne.com

From Canada Free Press we get this:

Lawfare, Voluntary Surrender, and Right-wing “Extremists”

Most folks are aware of the communist roots of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and its “country cousin” the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center), and quite a few understand that many liberal lawyers become Progressive, or “activist,” judges. (Here and here.)

Many of us, however, have yet to grasp the extent, intensity, and duration, of the “lawfare ” that has been, and is being, waged against freedom around the world—especially in the Western cultures. We need to take note.

This is an excerpt from the middle of the piece, read it all here. via Lucianne

Newsbusters quotes

Giuliani: Obama’s Number One Priority was an ‘Ideological Commitment to Government Takeover of Medicine’

Former presidential candidate and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani minced no words when it came to the Obama administration's massive health care overhaul. In an exclusive interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, Giuliani stated that, plain and simple, it "was an ideological act by the Congress" liberal Democrats "are very happy about."

"Instead of privatizing - which is what our government should be doing - we're taking major roles of the economy for the United States government," Giuliani told "Closing Bell" anchor Bartiromo. "And it is not an exaggeration to say we are starting to look more like a European social democracy than we are an American free-market capitalist society."

Read more here. via Lucianne.com

Unfortunately they are all right.  Many columnists and commentators on the left  refuse to admit this is what is happening, are they ashamed?  Richard Cohen at least tells us the truth and that he is happy about it.

I'm Not Insulted, I'm Outraged

There are several good articles from the Washington Examiner I'm linking today, this is the first.
Obama's nanny care insults the American spirit
By: Michael Barone

You are victims. You are helpless against the wiles of big corporations and insurance companies and you need protection. You need the government to take over and do things you cannot do for yourself.

That is the thinking of what David Brooks calls "the educated class" that favors the Democrats' health care bills. Members of this elite spout tales of woe of people denied coverage or care with the implication that there but for the grace of government go you. So sign on and the government will take care of everything.

It's an argument that has often been appealing to Europeans but that has always been unappealing to Americans. That's why these advocates segue to other arguments, like Barack Obama's assertion that the government can expand coverage and save money at the same time.

But voters quickly sniff out what this means....

I like what Michael Barone says here.  Read more at the Washington Examiner:

This is not the healthcare model we are looking for

From Dolley Doright who lived in Scotland under this system. It is from the Daily Mail UK
Children at top hospital had to wash in buckets

Sick children at a leading hospital were forced to wash in buckets for almost a month after bosses failed to fix the hot water supply.

More than 100 youngsters, some of them seriously ill, were left without hot running water.

Parents were forced to carry hot water in buckets from a single working tap in a sluice room so their children could wash. Youngsters suffering from brain tumours and cystic fibrosis were among those affected.

Read the rest, it is sickening. We will be reduced to this is this administration has its way.

Victor Davis Hanson asks the Greece Question

In the Corner of National Review Online:
Is Greece Our Future?

I lived in Greece for more than two years, and one of my best memories is of a small hotelier at a seaside resort. He checked you in; he cooked; he did the landscaping at night; he did all the maintenance during the day. I asked him why he didn't hire more help, since his hotel wasn't all that small and he seemed to be going 24/7. What followed was a harangue about the cost of hiring a permanent worker in Greece, the difficulty of ever firing him if he proved worthless, and why he preferred to do everything himself rather than fill out all sorts of forms and hire unmotivated but tenured employees. Besides, he said, almost everyone was on some sort of pension, disability, or government benefit, and was unwilling to work, so his choices were either illegal immigrants or broke foreign students. Then he launched into a blast against socialism, and explained how he was forced to become an expert tax dodger, how he would barter for all the transactions he could, and why he hated the government. He finished by sighing that in Greece, the people spend their time either devising ways to get government money or scheming to avoid the tax collectors — or, preferably, both.

I think the medicine for Greece's current crisis will prove more unpalatable than the wasting disease.

He presents a scary scenario but it is beginning to look more and more possible.

We were Warned by President Obama

Even while he was campaigning we kept hearing what he was, what he planned to do. Many of us knew it was coming, we just didn't think it would happen so soon.
Frank Meile writing in his Editors 2cents at the Daily Interlaken says:
America: Are we being ‘transformed’ and ... if so ... into what?

The week before he was elected president, President Obama made the bold statement that, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

No doubt, at the time, most of us would have written this off as the usual overblown rhetoric of a politician pumped up on his own favorable poll numbers. Instead, it turned out to be a warning.

We don’t have time or space here to recap all of the “changes” brought about in the first year of the Obama administration, but among the biggies were the federal government takeover of major components of finance and industry (also known as socialization), the appointment of communist sympathizers to major posts in the administration, and the dismantling of national security policies that had kept us mostly safe for the eight years since Sept. 11. 2001.

What has become abundantly clear in the last year is that the president not only has a goal of “fundamentally transforming” the country, he also has a plan for how to do so. That plan might be compared to science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt’s strategy for writing a novel, which was to make sure at least one new thing happened on every page — a new character, a new plot twist, a new gimmick, a new gadget — anything to make you forget he was not really a very good writer to begin with...

....It turns out that if you want to fundamentally transform a country, the best way to accomplish that is to introduce so many revolutionary ideas into the mix that some of them just have to slip through. The last month or so has been typical...

...This month, it was announced that the president had signed another executive order creating yet another “new idea” in governance. This one has gotten very little attention. According to the official press release on Jan. 11, “The President today signed an Executive Order establishing a Council of Governors to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”

Interesting idea, but what exactly is it? Does this perhaps fulfill President Obama’s campaign statement that, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded...”

...Remember, when one thing keeps happening after another, in rapid-fire succession, “you are not supposed to ask questions.” If there is anything that better sums up the magical first year of the Obama administration, I don’t know what it is.

For a better idea of Mr. Miele's point, read the whole editorial.
Note: all bolding is Rockport Conservatives.