The Patriot Post Brief 10-19-2009

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The Patriot Post Brief 10-19-2009
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Foundation

"The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument." --Thomas Jefferson

Health care at the DMV? Now serving number 33,573,901
Government

"The most revelatory passage in the so-called 'plain English' version of the health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved on Tuesday (without ever drafting the actual legislative language) says that in the future Americans will be offered the convenience of getting their health insurance at the Department of Motor Vehicles. This is no joke. If this bill becomes law, it will be the duty of the U.S. secretary of health and human services or the state governments overseeing federally mandated health-insurance exchanges to ensure that you can get your health insurance at the DMV. You will also be able to get it at Social Security offices, hospitals, schools and 'other offices' the government will name later. Page 19 of the committee's 'plain English' text says: 'The Secretary and/or states would do the following: ... Enable customers to enroll in health care plans in local hospitals, schools, Departments of Motor Vehicles, local Social Security offices, and other offices designated by the state.' This is the bill's most revelatory passage because it sublimely symbolizes the bill's true aim: a government takeover of the health care system. You do not get food at the DMV. You do not even get auto insurance at the DMV. But under what The Associated Press inaptly calls the Finance Committee's 'middle-of-the-road health care plan,' you will get health insurance at the DMV." --columnist Terence Jeffrey

Opinion in Brief

"The magic number du jour is the number of Americans without health insurance. Apparently getting more people insured is another 'good thing' -- which is to say, it is something whose costs are not to be weighed against the benefits, or whose costs are to be finessed aside with optimistic projections or a claim that these costs can be covered by eliminating 'waste, fraud and abuse.' In real life, people weigh one thing against another. But in politics one declares one thing to be imperative, so the issue then becomes how we do it. In real life, all sorts of desirable things are not done, either because of other desirable things that would have to be sacrificed to do it or because of the dangers incurred in achieving the desired objective are worse than the problem we want to solve. Almost never are the dangers of having uninsured people weighed against the dangers of having government bureaucrats over-ruling doctors and deciding whether money would be better spent saving the life of an elderly person or paying for an abortion for some teenager. The crowning irony is that the problems caused by insurance companies refusing to pay for certain medications or treatment are to be solved by giving government bureaucrats that same power, along with the power to prevent patients from using their own money to pay for those same medications or treatments. More than two centuries ago, Edmund Burke said, 'Nothing is good but in proportion' -- that is, when weighed as a trade-off. But a prudent weighing of trade-offs does not produce the political melodrama of pursuing a 'good thing' measured by some magic number." --economist Thomas Sowell

Liberty

"Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin. ... The Oslo committee's view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of 'the majority of the world's population.' If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted." --columnist Dennis Prager

The Gipper

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.' The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing." --Ronald Reagan

Culture

"I am sympathetic to the story told by Joseph Rocha, who claims in a Washington Post opinion column that he was discharged from the Navy because he is gay, though he says he never told anyone. Rocha says his male colleagues concluded he was gay when he wouldn't laugh at their dirty jokes about women or visit prostitutes with them. Gay service members have a point when they claim a double standard exists for heterosexuals and homosexuals regarding sexual behavior. ... But we are beginning in the wrong place. The place to start is whether citizens of this country, through their elected representatives and the military leaders named by them, have a right to determine what type of service members best serve the interests, safety and security of the United States. I contend we do. The military should not be a test lab. Pressure is building to put female sailors on submarines, along with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people presumably. That many heterosexuals find homosexual behavior immoral and not conducive to unit cohesion is of no concern to the social wrecking crew. What gay activists apparently don't care about is the effect reshaping the military in their image would have on our ability to fight and defend the country, which, after all, is the purpose of a military. ... The gays in the military and gay marriage issues are part of a broader attempt by liberals to restructure society. Social activists despise biblical morality (which heterosexuals could use a little more of, too), traditional values that have been proven to work when tried and numerous other cultural mores. This is not an opinion. It is also not a secret." --columnist Cal Thomas

[nChrist]

____________________________
The Patriot Post Brief 10-19-2009
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Political Futures

"Here's the joke. As boom- and bust-prone as high finance always has been and remains, the greatest systemic risk to our economy is not Wall Street. It's the growing federal debt (and weakening dollar) being enacted by those Washington politicians -- the ones who want to protect us from Wall Street. ... The same Congress and president who want to stop the banks from taking too much risk cannot stop themselves from ever more deficits. Indeed, so intoxicated -- nay, hypnotized! -- by debt is the current government that it is not even proposing to try to cut back. Last week saw, at the same time: 1) the world shuddering about the debt-driven weakening dollar ('The biggest story in the world economy is the continuing fall of the U.S. dollar, or at least it is everywhere outside of Washington, D.C., the place most responsible for its declining value.' -- The Wall Street Journal) and 2) Washington cheering Sen. Max Baucus' health bill's spending levels ('Health Care Bill Gets Green Light in Cost Analysis' -- The New York Times). That's right. The federal government is giving the 'green light' for the country to drive to the poorhouse -- and drive there, I would argue, by way of the lunatic asylum. Are they nuts?" --columnist Tony Blankley

For the Record

"'What happened to global warming?' read the headline -- on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest. Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson reported, the warmest year recorded globally 'was not in 2008 or 2007, but 1998.' It's true, he continued, 'For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.' ... Western Washington University geologist Don J. Easterbrook presented research last year that suggests that the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) caused warmer temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s. With Pacific sea surface temperatures cooling, Easterbrook expects 30 years of global cooling. EPA analyst Alan Carlin -- an MIT-trained economist with a degree in physics -- referred to 'solar variability' and Easterbrook's work in a document that warned that politics had prompted the EPA and other countries to pay 'too little attention to the science of global warming' as partisans ignored the lack of global warming over the last 10 years. At first, the EPA buried the paper, then it permitted Carlin to post it on his personal Web site. ... Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated non-believers from their panels. ... For a long time, that approach worked. But after 11 years without record temperatures that had the seas spilling over the Statue of Liberty's toes, they are going to have to change tactics. They're going to have to rely on real data, not failed models, scare stories and the Big Lie that everyone who counts agrees with them." --columnist Debra Saunders

Reader Comments

"I am saddened when I hear so many well meaning fellow conservatives and patriots focus their attention and debate on 'the minutia.' A rule-of-man-focused opposition to a rule-of-man-focused idea falls right into the Alinsky playbook. Thank you, Mr. Alexander and staff at The Patriot Post, for having the wisdom and enduring commitment to maintain proper focus on the fundamental issue at hand: our federal government's blatant disregard for constitutional Rule of Law." --Adam in St. Louis

"I, for one, appreciated the parenthetical 'not provide' Alexander and Clymer added to 'promote the general Welfare' in the Preamble. May I also suggest a parenthetical 'not the Individual,' i.e. 'to promote (not provide) the general (not the Individual) Welfare.'" --Rick

"Although not citizens of the USA, my wife and I have been following with great dismay what is being done to your once-great country. We have different government structures, yet, many of the problems described in your essays and posts echo strongly with us. We think that the rights enumerated in your Founding documents belong to men everywhere. Your cry for vigilance and action is stirring us to do something in this country as well." --Gilles & Elinore (Canada)

"To my fellow Patriot, Mark Alexander, I propose that you and I and like minded Patriot representatives of their respective states, convene in Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, not to rewrite that venerable document, but, as you wrote in 'Our Legacy of Liberty', to affirm its rightful restoration and attendant Rule of Law. We can then return to our states with an appropriate proclamation of that affirmation and hold some real Tea Parties. If 70 percent of government spending is not constitutional, I think you are correct in your assessment that the central government thus has no authority to collect taxes for such spending. Semper Fi from an 06 active duty CO." --San Diego

The Last Word

Editor's Note: The following is satirical humor.

"Conservative arguments against President Obama are becoming increasingly silly. They oppose Obama rescuing businesses despite all the jobs on the line, they're against government taking control of health care from soulless insurance companies, and they oppose increased taxes on energy consumption despite the sorry state of the environment. And why do they oppose these most sensible actions? Because of their irrational, brain-dead obsession with liberty. Of course, everyone likes freedom -- to a point -- but there are a number of loud, stupid Americans who just take it to ridiculous extremes. They hoard their freedoms like greedy little dwarfs hoarding gold when they have little actual use for most of it. People need rules and order and guidance, but they hardly ever need liberty. Liberty doesn't feed your family. Liberty doesn't heal you when you're sick. Liberty doesn't educate your children. A strong government can do all those things, but apparently that's against liberty. ... Just look at this ludicrous debate over health care reform. Of course the government should provide health care for everyone; how obvious can anything be? The government has the money and smart people working for everyone's interests to make sure all get health care, so why would anyone be against that? Because apparently people aren't 'free' to make their health care choices for themselves. ... Real freedom is not having to worry about health care, and that's what you get when you have the government take it over. Yes, you'll have little control over who gets what kind of care, but some people will just have to suffer some for the betterment of the whole. The advantage of having the government in control is that it makes sure the fewest number suffer, and those that do aren't particularly important. ... Most of the civilized world has moved beyond this uncompromising view of 'freedom' -- if they were ever foolish enough to adopt it in the first place. Can you think of any other country that would permit its citizens to have guns like America does? Of course not; that's beyond moronic. People know freedom is a dangerous, scary thing, and you have to be careful how much you tolerate." --columnist Frank J. Fleming

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)