Obama

[nChrist]

Globalist cover-up hiding Obama's past?
WorldNetDaily Exclusive Commentary
by Michal Massie
Posted: October 13, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

Barack Obama has spent (or had spent for him) between $1.8 million and $3.2 million in legal fees to keep his personal records secret. These include his birth certificate, his college records and all else that could provide more insight into his past.

But why? Who spends that kind of money to keep their records hidden unless they have something to hide? And if someone (especially a political figure, not to mention a sitting president) is willing to go to such lengths, it is reasonable to believe he has something to hide. It is reasonable to believe that whatever it is they are hiding would be damning if revealed. What could it be that Obama is so fearful of having revealed?

Consider the kind of power it takes to command such silence. Let's face it – there is nothing not known that cannot be made known – Jimmy Hoffa's resting place notwithstanding.

Let's first start with what it takes to keep the cacophony of silence and complicit cover-up silent and covered up.

Discover the truth about the intimidation tactics used by today's White House in Whistleblower magazine's "MOB RULE: Under Obama, Chicago-style bullying and intimidation go nationwide"

Joan Swirsky writes that Douglas Hagmann, in an interview with Dr. Laurie Roth, revealed, "The reason for the media blackout about [Obama's] birth-certificate issue was nothing less than organized Mafia-like dire threats to members of the media, issued not only from the heads of major TV and radio stations, but also from Federal Communication Commission officials. According to Hagmann and [his investigative partner] Judi McCleod, who conducted a nine-month investigation and documented their findings scrupulously," threats were made to fire major talk-show hosts if they mentioned Obama's birth certificate, threats were made by FCC officials to yank broadcasting licenses, and memos were circulated by corporate TV headquarters to all on-air employees advising them not to mention the birth-certificate issue, his lawyer's license or his college records. ("Who is behind quashing the birth-certificate issue?"; Aug. 26, 2009; RenewAmerica.com)

According to Swirsky, during the interview Hagmann and McCleod alluded to e-mails and other evidence in their possession – copies of which, they said, were secreted in several locations.

But the question that begs answering is: Why go to such lengths to keep documents away from public scrutiny? The birth-certificate issue is only a critical problem if, as many believe, it contradicts Obama's citizenship story. And why prevent access to college records or restrict inquiry concerning his law license? It was Michelle who mysteriously had her license suspended in 1993.

An even more pressing question is: How does a person like Obama – a nobody from nowhere – come to command such power and money so as to pull this off? Think about what it takes for a presidential candidate, and now sitting president, to have such power.

The answer can only be that Obama is the front man for something far more sinister. One person, without the strength and backing of a cabal capable of toppling governments and affecting worldwide currencies, etc., could not even consider such an undertaking, much less pull it off.

Ergo, the logical conclusion must then be that behind Obama there exists a group or organization so powerful and so sinister that they are able not just to influence global policy, but to control it. I repeat for the record, Obama in and of himself cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, singularly demand that every major media outlet ignore investigating that which could potentially make Woodward and Bernstein's investigation into President Nixon pale in comparison.

Global domination is obviously their goal, but what in Obama's background threatens to derail them if it were exposed? Rumors and suspicions abound pursuant to his citizenship, but if someone has enough power to silence a worldwide press and media, they would certainly have the ability to forge or recreate birth documents.

Also, Obama didn't go to school in a vacuum. If there were something in his college records or if he had committed a crime or whatever, other students would know it and those persons would have by now leaked same to a credible source or outlet.

But there is one thing that wouldn't be as accessible to public scrutiny and that is his medical records. If in his background there is evidence of emotional breakdown, susceptibility to breakdown, emotional instability or something similar and it became known, it is the one thing that could derail the objectives of the power behind him.

I'm not an investigative journalist. I write opinion, and it is my opinion that Obama is but the tip of something much larger, and if same were to become known it would reverberate worldwide. If he isn't, then he should make the requested records available immediately. No other president or leader – not Castro, not Chavez, not Clinton, not Khrushchev – has demanded and received the secrecy he has. No one was capable of such a feat until now.

It is time, no matter the risk or the cost, for investigators and reporters to do their jobs. The American public has the right to know the truth about Obama.

[David_james]

why not make a law that says unless you show your certificate, you can't be president.

[nChrist]

why not make a law that says unless you show your certificate, you can't be president.

Hello Brother David,

This should already have been done, and most thought that it had been done. In this case, it slipped through the cracks and there was gross dereliction of duty by many levels. So, basic eligibility for the highest office in the land has not been established. However, this is far from being a dead issue, and it WILL NOT go away. Sooner or later, this WILL BE answered. The massive and EXPENSIVE cover-up indicates there is much to HIDE by many, and MANY SHOULD BE FACING SERIOUS CRIMINAL CHARGES.

[David_james]

I was thinking about next election (2012, maybe those nutcases are on to something).

Obama won't be elected again. It won't be someone that will fix everything. 

[nChrist]

I was thinking about next election (2012, maybe those nutcases are on to something).

Obama won't be elected again. It won't be someone that will fix everything. 

Hello Brother David,

I hope and pray that we've been Raptured Home to Glory before 2012. If not, God will be with us anyway. There's no doubt in my mind at all that things are getting worse around the world very quickly. The stage appears to be set and ready for the Tribulation Period to be ushered in. The longer Christians are left on this earth, the harder things will be for us. Back to the positive side - people are still accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and God is with us. It should be fairly obvious by now that governments around the world will not be seeking to do good, but God still has a purpose for us being here. Our part is to pray and yield to God's use.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Isaiah 12:2  Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

[Shammu]

Obama Taking Us On Path To Fascism

By HERB DENENBERG,
Sunday, October 25, 2009

During the last presidential campaign, I said there was a light whiff of fascism coming from the Obama campaign. That was based on its habit of improperly trying to repress criticism of every kind. Example: A Chicago radio station was planning on airing a critic of President Obama, who was publicizing the candidate’s close association with terrorist Bill Ayres. The Obama campaign organized a call-in campaign to flood the station with calls and prevent the critic from being heard. Anther example: The Obama campaign warned that any critics in Missouri would be subjected to prosecution there if they voiced criticism that was not true. There was a "Barack Obama Truth Squad” made up of prosecutors and sheriffs to keep critics in line, promising rebuttals and prosecution in appropriate cases (NewsBusters, September 29, 2008).

Now that whiff has turned into a strong stench of fascism, as the Obama Administration uses the vast resources of the federal government to squelch criticism and silence and intimidate critics. Here are some of the recent examples of that:

• The administration has organized a concerted campaign to marginalize, demonize, de-legitimize and destroy Fox Cable News simply because it, virtually alone among broadcast outlets, originates strong criticism of the Obama Administration and asks tough questions about what it is trying to do. Obama spokesmen, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod have said, in effect, that Fox is just an arm of the Republican Party and is not a legitimate news organization. Obama spokesmen say the station has a perspective. There are several answers to this. First, its news programs (as opposed to its opinion and commentary programs featuring the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck) pre- sent both sides of issues in a fair and balanced manner, and that has been confirmed by the survey of a respected research organization. The Pew Research Center found, by a wide margin,  Fox had the most objective coverage of the last presidential campaign. Second, it is true that opinion programs have a “perspective, ” but that is true of all opinion programs including those on other networks such as MSNBC. Third, the White House doesn’t complain about networks or broadcasters with a Democratic perspective, even though they dominate the dial. In fact, with the exception of Fox, all the major broadcasters have a liberal and Democratic Party perspective, admittedly some in much stronger form than others. The White House is not only trying to intimidate Fox but is clearly also trying to fire a warning shot at any broadcasters that might take the same path as Fox. This is the way Fox reported that development (October 19, 2009): “White House chief of staff Mr. Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." Obama senior advisor Mr. Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."

The Obama campaign (thus referred to as they are in a campaign and not a governing mode), in the tradition of corrupt, thuggish, Chicago politics and fascism have also set out to destroy the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, insurance companies and any other critics that stand in their way.

• When a health insurance company that marketed Medicare policies tried to warn its policyholders that Obamacare would hurt seniors’ insurance programs, the Department of Health and Human Services issued on a gag order on such communications with policyholders. It also said that the warning was misleading, which it was not. The gag order was since revoked, but its initial promulgation tells you something about the mentality of the White House and its attitude toward criticism. The Washington Post reported on the “gag order” as follows: “The federal government has ordered health insurers to stop telling Medicare beneficiaries that proposed health reform legislation could hurt seniors and jeopardize their benefits. The government might take enforcement action against insurers that have tried to mobilize opposition to the legislation by sending their enrollees "misleading and confusing" messages, a senior official of the Department of Health and Human Services said in a memo…” Query: Who will take action against Mr. Obama for the countless lies he’s telling in an effort to sell Obamacare?

• When segments of the health insurance industry turned against Obamacare, Mr. Obama threatened to have the antitrust exemption of the industry revoked. When the timing of the threat is taken into account, it is clear that this was revenge and payback for Obamacare criticism. For details see New York Times (October 17, 2008). Working in tandem with Mr. Obama, Congressional leaders also issued threats to insurance companies that dared to dissent.

•  Any criticism of Mr. Obama and Obamacare is met with harsh criticism and what Mr. Obama once described as “calling them out.” For example, a recent radio address from  Mr. Obama accused the insurance industry of misleading and improper criticism of Obamacare. The address lasted a little over six minutes, but did not sight a single fact or bit of evidence indicating that the industry was using deceptive tactics. As usual, the Obama speech was long on name-calling but devoid of facts and information. Unless you accept the Obama program, you are almost immediately and automatically branded as dealing in illegitimate criticism and “politics as usual.”

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

• Mr. Obama and his administration are willing to tell lies,  and big lies, over and over again, perhaps on the Goebbels theory that if you tell a big enough lie often enough it will be believed. One of the Obama lies that I found particularly irksome was his claim after the Senate Committee passed a version of Obamacare that it was a bipartisan product. In fact, Obamacare had finally garnered one Republican supporter (Senator Olympia “Republican in Name Only” Snowe, R., Me.) out of a Congress with 535 members. What’s worse, in the legislative process, the Republicans were frozen out and “did not have a seat at the table” to use one of Obama’s favorite figures of speech.

• The Obama administration is known to favor and is now maneuvering to get some version of the Fairness Doctrine on the books to wipe out conservative talk radio. If Mr. Obama’s people can’t get the Fairness Doctrine revived,  they’ll try to kill conservative talk radio with some other device such as “diversity” or “localism” requirements in broadcasting.

• Then there was the highly publicized attempt of the Obama Administration to use the National Endowment for the Arts to influence artists and others who received government grants to create “works of art” supporting the Obama program. This is not an isolated example of the illegal and improper use by Mr. Obama of the government to propagandize and campaign: “Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley, R., Iowa, is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda.” That’s a report from Roll Call (Oct. 20). You will probably also recall the White House’s collection of e-mail names, addresses and comments of those making “fishy” comments about Obamacare.

•  Mr. Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would abolish the secret ballot in union elections. This shows the willingness of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party leadership to do anything to satisfy the demands of one of their voting constituencies. In this case, it’s the labor bosses, who want to revive their fortunes by making it easy to organize new unions – without the need to pass the test of a secret ballot obtaining the right to organize a union.

• Mr. Obama has had a long and close association with ACORN, the corrupt community organization that has specialized in intimidation and other improper tactics to force banks to lend and has long been in the business of election fraud. That kind of anti-democratic activity is part of the picture that emerges from Mr. Obama and his administration.

•  Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have been willing to indulge in outrageous anti-democratic techniques to get legislation passed: Not reading a bill before it is signed, not posting the bill on the Internet prior to voting on it, as promised, and keeping negotiations secret and one-sided, also in conflict with promises.

I’ve emphasized one aspect of fascism – its objective of the forcible suppression of opposition. But it also qualifies under the other elements, including the suppression of private enterprise and putting it under centralized government control. That is one hallmark of the Obama Administration, it expands government, contracts the private sector and places new and unprecedented power in the hands of a centralized, expanding government bureaucracy.

This government expansion also is a restriction of our freedom because as the government gets bigger, the individual citizen gets smaller. Consider some of the belief systems of his Czars. Ron Bloom, the manufacturing czar thinks the “free market is nonsense.”

He also agrees with Chinese tyrant Mao Tse Tung that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Anita Dunn, a communications director, also a big fan of Mao, expresses those views even when speaking to young students. And there is Mark Lloyd, Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC, who views tyrant Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as his model. The White House is brimming with socialists, communists, radicals and hate-America types. The only ideology not found there is one that respects American values and believes in American exceptionalism.

Obama Taking Us On Path To Fascism

[nChrist]

Obama Taking Us On Path To Fascism

This administration of thugs is getting closer to this by the day. OBVIOUSLY - actions like this are illegal and Unconstitutional. WHEN ARE OUR SERVANT-REPRESENTATIVES going to be held accountable to the RULE OF LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION? IT'S PAST TIME, AND THERE IS PLENTY OF PRISON SPACE FOR THEM!

[nChrist]

AT&T/Yahoo Poll on Obama's Performance

DO NOT MISS YOUR CHANCE TO CAST YOUR VOTE:

                Finally, a chance to vote on President Obama's performance on this Economy and where he is taking this nation .... AT&T/YahooPoll.... This totally non-partisan poll asks but one question. The question is stated very simply... and, to the point.  No tricks.  No hidden messages.  JUST ONE SINGLE, SIMPLE QUESTION.  I don't know why this hasn't been done before...

                I'm impressed with the fact that the question is NOT "phrased" in a way that it can be interpreted or misrepresented later...to fit someone else's desired answer.


http://js.polls.yahoo.com/quiz/quiziframe.php?poll_id=46067

                NOTE: After you vote, you will see a second page that shows the running total and what these voters opinions are.Then pass it on...so others may cast their vote.

[Soldier4Christ]

I voted and see that the majority of people so far think as I do. Passing this one on to all I know.

[nChrist]

I voted and see that the majority of people so far think as I do. Passing this one on to all I know.

I was shocked to see that only 56% of the people are strongly opposed to what Obama is doing. I thought that number would be much higher, but the public is becoming more informed by the day now, and I would hope that disapproval rating would skyrocket.

[Soldier4Christ]

Unfortunately there are those that no matter what he does will remain blind and still fully support him.

[Soldier4Christ]

White House 'gatecrashers' tied to terror sympathizer
Salahi served in same anti-Israel group as Obama's Palestinian professor pal

The Virginia couple who allegedly crashed a White House state dinner is tied to Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism and has been a close associate to President Obama.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi met Obama in a receiving line at last week's event, with a "deeply concerned and embarrassed" Secret Service stating it never checked whether the two were on the White House guest list.

Tareq Salahi served on the board of the American Task Force for Palestine, where Columbia University Professor Khalidi served as vice president. The American Power blog noticed both Salahi's and Khalidi's names have been scrubbed from the Task Force website, although Salahi's bio still comes up on a Google cache search of the site.

The Task Force lobbies for a Palestinian state and demands the so-called right of return for Palestinian "refugees" – a formula Israeli officials across the political spectrum have warned could destroy Israel by population genocide, with the Jewish state forced to accept millions of Arabs, thus diluting its Jewish majority.

Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel. He has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings a response to "Israeli aggression."

He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.

Obama, Khalidi closely tied

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, Obama first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.

Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.

"I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated.

Khalidi said he supported Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."

Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."

Obama also sat on the board of the Woods Fund, which in 2001 provided a $40,000 grant to Mona Khalidi's Arab American Action Network. The fund provided a second grant to the network for $35,000 in 2002.

Speakers at network dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit titled "The Subject of Palestine" that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba," or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.

In 2003, Obama delivered an in-person testimonial for Khalidi, who at the time was departing the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University in New York. At the 2003 event, poetry reportedly was read comparing Israelis to Osama bin Laden and accusing the Jewish state of terrorism.

In May 2008, WND noted, Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the "Palestinian question" a "running sore."

In his piece, "Palestine: Liberation Deferred," Khalidi suggested Israel carried out "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians and Western powers backed Israel's establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust. He lamented the Palestinian Authority's stated acceptance of a Palestinian state "only" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem, and he argued Israel should be dissolved and instead a binational, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.

White House 'gatecrashers' posed with Obama in 2005

Meanwhile, a statement issued by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said the agency was "deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the State Dinner" and added that "the preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list."

Sullivan suggested that the couple had been screened for weapons, but should not have gained entry. "That failing is ours," he said.

Reached by telephone Friday evening, the couple's attorney, Paul W. Gardner, declined to comment. In an e-mail to Bloomberg News, Gardner added, "My clients were cleared by the White House to be there."

Yet, a June 2005 photo from Polo Contacts Worldwide shows the Salahis with Obama at a pre-event to America's Polo Cup. Others in the photo include American Idol's Randy Jackson and members of the rock group Black Eyed Peas.

[islandboy]

It was mentioned about the number of people % wise that are not in favor of Obama. I believe the number is much higher. Remember polls only ask a certain number of people. Many people do not use the internet as often as we might and there are many people now that do to job losses can not afford to be on-line. Also it depends on how questions are ask, or how they are allowed to be answered. I would venture to say the %-age is much higher then known.

There is a website you can go to that has a video you can listen to (starts on its own), that tells what went on at the 2008 National Democratic Convention.  http://wewillnotbesilenced2008.com/video/index.htm
It is long but worth the time.

[nChrist]

Is Obamacare Like Mandatory Auto Insurance?
Andrew Tallman
“The Andrew Tallman Show,” KPXQ-Phoenix


November 17, 2009

Teaching introductory logic for ten years made me vividly aware of the low average quality of reasoning among college students. It also showed me how little improvement can realistically be accomplished by only one semester's training in the art of thinking clearly. By all rights, then, I should have severely pessimistic expectations about public discourse in this country. Nevertheless, whether I suffer from my own strain of bad induction or just unquenchable naïveté, pandemic outbreaks of illogical memes still catch me by surprise.

That's why I've been so shocked at the widespread assertion that a national mandate requiring individuals to carry health insurance is legitimate (and even Constitutional) because we already require everyone to purchase auto insurance. There's just one small error this idea seems to forget: the federal government does not actually have a law requiring individual drivers to carry such insurance. Only states do.

And since federalism is at the center of the Constitutional concerns surrounding Obamacare, I find it stunningly bold to claim the federal government has authority for a project because of something similar the states currently do. The argument seems to be, "Congress can do it because it's just like something else that Congress doesn't do." Now, obviously, if we were debating whether individual states could mandate health coverage, at least the levels of government being analogized would be the same. But the leap from what states do to what Congress can do betrays vistas of ignorance concerning our system of government. A college freshman would be embarrassed to make such a weak argument, yet members of Congress have said precisely this.

Senator Burris, for instance, recently told CNS News that it's okay to make individuals purchase health insurance because, "Under state law, we have every one required to have automobile insurance … so, that's the same thing proportionally to automobile insurance. I mean, it's comparable." The good news here, of course, is that the former Illinois Secretary of State (hence, overseer of the DMV) rightly situated the law at the state level. The sad news is that this United States Senator has taken an oath of office to uphold a document he apparently has not read. But perhaps we can forgive his lapse, seeing as how he's the Senatorial equivalent of a baseball September call-up put into office by a now-deposed criminal of a governor. What excuse do his colleagues have?

See, in some sense, those of us who live in states (like Illinois) which require minimum coverage might understandably forget that not all things "the government" requires are things "the national government" requires. But I'm especially surprised that inhabitants of New Hampshire and Wisconsin haven't immediately exposed this line of reasoning since their states have no such requirement at all—a barely publicized truth which underscores the fact that there is no national car insurance law.

Still, let's put aside the equivocation between federal and state authority and investigate whether the analogy would hold even if mandatory auto insurance actually were a federal law. In so doing, I must apologize in advance for marching over slightly more well-traveled territory.

The reason states require car insurance is because of the risks to other people and their property which driving so obviously entails. The underlying legal basis here is tort law, which holds me liable for any harm I cause to others. Since driving increases both the likelihood and extent of such torts, mandatory insurance (or proof of financial ability to pay in New Hampshire and Wisconsin) "insures" that I can restore my victims to wholeness. In a world without car insurance, every accident would lead either to a court ruling or a settlement. Insurance payouts are rooted in this and are simply a more expeditious way of resolving torts. But in basing health insurance on this model, I'm naturally led to ask about the underlying rationale. Whom, exactly, should I have sued when I caught the flu or broke my leg falling down the stairs if I hadn't had health insurance?

Unless I was deliberately coughed upon or pushed, there is no one to blame. So there simply is no parallel with tort law to draw upon here. Moreover, the two possible types of auto insurance which would fit fairly well with a health insurance mandate (collision and medical payments) are specifically not ever required by the states.

Additionally, you should note that no state requires you to have liability insurance until you positively engage in some enhanced risk activity, like driving, performing surgery, or opening a restaurant. Even though any of us at any time could harm another person (bicycling, playing softball or even just tripping on a crowded escalator), no one is required by law to carry bodily motion insurance.

Taken together, all of this means that, far from being a good example to draw upon, current auto insurance laws are actually quite a robust counter-analogy to mandatory health insurance because the two are so starkly asymmetrical. The similarities between the two types of insurance seem to begin and end with their shared name.

But wait, there's more.

One of the most debated aspects of current health care reform proposals is the "public option," or government delivery of health insurance. Once again we find a glaring disconnect in the comparison with auto coverage. Although 47 individual states make insurance a precondition of driving (Virginia will allow you to simply pay a $500 annual fee in lieu of having it), no state to my knowledge actually supplies the required insurance to anyone. Geico, Allstate, Country Companies and State Farm do not have to compete with "Vermont Casualty Group" or "The Florida Collision Underwriting Consortium." Thus, if auto insurance is a good object lesson, it seems to urge us to specifically not involve the federal government as a provider.

Is there anything else we can learn from mandatory car insurance to guide us in the current debate? One thing is that the presupposition behind such mandates (where they exist) is the recognition of driving as a privilege rather than an entitlement. Driving prohibitions can't be litigated as deprivations "without due process of law" because there is no fundamental right to endanger others through the operation of a motor vehicle. But what privileged behavior am I engaging in before I must carry health insurance?

I must breathe.

Since I'm forced to take Congress seriously when they make their arguments, I am driven (sorry) to conclude their use of the auto insurance analogy means they consider some aspect of my behavior to be a privilege rather than a right. The only contenders are existence and breathing. Since they don't appear to be meta-physicians (sorry again), I have to infer that Congress views breathing as a privilege rather than a right. And since they want to insure all breathers, should I also anticipate the parallel institution of breathing licenses for which we must visit the DMV and pass a proficiency test? Perhaps I should begin studying now. I'd hate to have to refrain from breathing pending a make-up exam.

Furthermore, the actual car coverage levels required by most states are extremely low. Although I suppose some people are satisfied with $25,000/$50,000 coverage (a common benchmark), most drivers understand that $100,000/$300,000 is much more prudent. But if the more robust protections are so obviously smart, why aren't they required? It's simple. Because all of the states recognize the need to balance the wisdom of carrying insurance against the restraint all levels of government must exercise when infringing upon the core value of individual liberty.

Since the right to property (in this case to not pay insurance premiums) is so fundamental in our system, it must be violated only for the most extreme of reasons and only to the most humble of extents. Thus, basing health care reform on this same pattern would require at most only some sort of minimum catastrophic coverage. Suffice it to say that current proposals which cover every form of health care down to the most routine are not modeled on the same recognition of liberty and property rights.

So, having taken a more diligent look at whether mandatory automobile insurance justifies the imposition of health insurance, we now have a much better sense of its validity. In order to make the comparison justify current health care proposals, Congress (not the states) would have to currently require that all people (regardless of personal wealth or actual car ownership) owned an insurance policy provided by Congress itself that covered routine maintenance, periodic breakdown, and collision repair to their own cars, even ones they acquire with pre-existing defects (like from a junkyard).

Since not one single element of this hypothetical currently exists, and since breathing is not a privilege, my request is simple. During the two weeks that are fair to allow this column to circulate through society, simply boo anyone who makes the car insurance argument in public. Thereafter, I recommend noogies. It's what one does to recalcitrant freshmen.