Evidence Based Health Care

The Enlightenment Left will claim, if asked, to be reason-based, rational and scientific, as opposed to the religious, faith-based Right. I have yet to come across an Atheist, secularist Leftist who actually understands either logic, rational thought processes, or the basic theory of evidence.

The desperate attempts to ram through a 1000 page, unread, government takeover of American health care is a case in point. In the attempt to do so, all evidence as to the nature of the program mandated by the bill(s) has been drowned out by self righteous cries of “moral imperative”.

When actual portions of the various congressional bills are brought to light, the providers of that actual evidence are called “liars”. When the impending collapse of Canada’s health care system is presented as evidence, the similarity of the unread congressional bills to Canadian care is denied. When the egregious rationing of the British Health Care system is offered into evidence, rationing is denied without evidence of financial stability of either the economy or the proposed health care system. What is the evidence that the supposed 45 million uninsured are even Americans?

Evidence is not part of the Left’s assault on the American way of providing health care: a fabricated morality is the justification. In fact, it is religious in nature, based purely on a convenient, temporary “moral” basis - the most onerous type of religious credulousness – one demanding obedience from all citizens.

Why no evidence offered up by the Enlightenment Left? Could it be that all evidence that is real, is negative? The financial evidence alone should be enough to sink the bills. The existing struggling Medicare system will be raided of one third of a Trillion dollars of money allocated to health care for seniors. The remainder of the funding has not yet been found. Yet there will be no rationing?

Rationality is never one of the Left’s strong points, and this time they have rationalized themselves into a position so weak that even total control of the U.S. government might not salvage their “moral imperative”.

When they fail, their bleatings will be couched in terms of morality, or rather the immorality of the opponents of their proposed government take-over. The religion of Leftism will become self-righteous to a breast-beating, screaming maximum. And they do self-righteous indignation so well. It should be very entertaining.

Moral Lectures from the Morality-Free

Obama once again declares a moral imperative. His health care take-over is moral; dissenters are liars. This is the essence of his message to the religious groups that Obama has approached in the last weeks.

Obama has spread abortion funding around the world. He has supported partial-birth abortion. He wants to kill DOMA, the restriction of marriage to a man and a woman. He lies about his positions on just about everything – from single payer insurance to his birthplace to his friendships and associations to his ethics as an Alinsky purveyor. So it is no surprise that he lies about morality – he has no concept of what morality is.

The Alinsky-Obama morality is clear. According to Alinsky, the only immorality is the failure to pursue a radical opportunity. And that is the sole morality of the radical Left. There is no accompanying examination of “means” for ethical or moral consideration: the “end” justifies any means whatsoever, including defaming the opposition as “immoral”. And that is just what a desperate Obama is doing.

So is it surprising that the idea of eliminating the “last year of life” of the elderly is part of Obama’s thought process? The savings produced by not providing care to the elderly would be significant, a concept not lost on the eugenist-in-chief, and certainly not his health advisors, such as Emmanuel, who has already decided the value of the lives of every person at every stage of his life. There is no morality involved in deciding whom to deny care; the decision is strictly utilitarian, based on the pre-calculated value of the life of that patient. If you think that this sounds familiar, re-read the book “The Nazi Doctors”, by Robert Jay Lifton… if you can stomach it.

The Emmanuel Human Life Value graph is shown here again, so that you can determine the value of your life, your baby's life, your parents and grandparents lives... and ultimately your life at life's end:


Obama has staffed an entire czarhood with morality-free Leftists. These individuals are quite comfortable in creating their own ethics-of-the-moment, convenient behaviors decreed by them to be moral, and even moral imperatives, at least at the moment they are uttered. Tomorrow, of course, these behaviors or programs might not matter in the least, but today they are moral and imperative.

Now Obama cronies are lecturing the public on “integrity’. David Axelrod is a professional lie-monger, and that is not a lie. He “repackages” issues to be presented to the public in a fashion that obscures the real intent. One of his clients was Michelle Obama who was trying to slick out a way to perform [illegal] patient-dumping in order to raise the bottom line at her hospital; Axelrod recommended “rebranding” the issue to make it palatable to the poor blacks who were being turned away in favor of more lucrative patients.

This is the same Axelrod who “repackaged” a huge utility rate hike, using fear mongering ads predicting power outages a la California, and promoting rate hikes through a front group he called “Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or Core” - failing to declare that the ads were paid for by Commonwealth Edison, the beneficiary of the rate increase.

This is the same Axelrod whose son now runs the Axelrod firm, AKPD, which is still paying the elder Axelrod, and which is paid to develop ads for at least two front organizations for PhRMA for supporting ObamaCare: profiting from the drug organization that hopes to profit from ObamaCare. This is integrity, Obama-style, Chicago-style, Alinsky-style.

The idea of Axelrod lecturing on Integrity is ludicrous at any and all levels.

Much of the USA subscribes to a different type of morality, one of higher derivation, one that is absolute and not convenient, one that has a real integrity. Perhaps it is this conflict of moral basics that is helping to drive Obama and his Leftist cronies into sub 50 percentile approval ratings, and Democrat congressmen into hiding.

Truly Post-Racial America...

A Matter of Character

The internet this August seems awash with fresh attacks on the statist congress and president with which this country is currently afflicted. Some list the most egregious lies the president told. Others forecast an overturning of congress, at least the house, in the next election cycle. Some compare the wave of grassroots protest and the nasty response from an uncaring ruling class to the Iranian protest and Tienanmen Square protests, declaring that only in America could protests demand worldwide attention without accompanying bloodshed.

The issue has an essence, that of character. It is not just that he lied, lied often and lied about lying, the issue for the president is one of character.

Character is one of those absolutes that secularists, relativists and Atheists detest. I have written about the attacks on Denver area schools because the schools promote character values which can be found in the bible. By rejecting all absolutes, positive character traits are also rejected.

This is important in understanding the development of the young Obama. A youth whose father abandoned him, whose mother died, and whose grandfather – his male role model – was a communist who associated with other communists and took Obama with him, such a youth was at risk to begin with and was victimized by a soulless, Atheist creed. Concepts of positive character traits fall by the wayside in a culture that adores revolution, Che Guevara, and hates the established culture. A person becomes defined solely by his passion for the cause. When the ends justify the means, any means whatsoever, character traits are not an issue.

It is no wonder that Obama became the person he is. He was reinforced in black victimology during his 20 years attending a church of virulent racial hatred. And it is no wonder that the black community supports him at 95%. The black community, under the auspices of their leaders espousing “victimology” as their creed and endorsing every device that tears black families apart, produces men that likely have never even heard of positive character traits. Such a culture will naturally reward another leader promising more largess to the permanent culture of victims.

The issue then is not just the actions of Obama, the Left, or the black community. The issue is the loss of the ideal of developing humans with positive character traits, rather than producing ideologues of one stripe or another, and a growing culture of “victims”. The underlying essence of the issue is Atheist secularism, and its chokehold on the current governing leaders.

Obama Becomes Christlike In His Own Eyes

Even as his own credibility polls head further into the mud, Obama takes the liberty of addressing a crowd of religious leaders using the language of Jesus. Calling his ObamaCare plan a “moral obligation”, he used terms like “brother’s and sister’s keeper”, and “false witness”, and “Good News”.

Obama, who quit going to church as soon as he was elected, uses morality as a weapon: you are guilty of immorality if you oppose him. The facts are clear, however. The Leftocrats want only government run health care; they do not support any solution that doesn’t include the “public” plan. The Leftists are not interested in the morality of providing care. They are interested in grabbing control of a piece of the private sector. There are plans that could provide care without the necessity of a government run plan. These are rejected out-of-hand, and it is this basic fallacy that is crumbling the Democrats in full view of the world.

Obama is becoming a victim of his own narcissism. Even though he has covered a significant number of his tracks, he has such a penchant for being seen, and seen constantly, that his recorded words are coming back to haunt him (despite the black-out of news protection provided by the pusillanimous, obsequious mainstream media). Obama really did say that he wants single payer health care. Obama really did say that health care rationing for the elderly – including his grandmother – should be considered as efficiency dictates. And Obama’s top advisors include eugenists such as Emmanuel, who has already decided the value of each human according to their age.

It is true that the installation of free health care is a moral decision, a decision about what “should” or “should not” be done. It is not true that the only moral conclusion is to install a new bureaucracy to parcel out health care as it sees fit. Obama has deliberately confused the two in his attempt to attain government control over a huge portion of the private sector.

As always, what is not known is how many Americans will be fooled by such maneuvers. The longer the debate, the fewer will be fooled it appears, according to polls. And that is why Obama wants it finished soon, sooner than now. Because the country is turning on him. Finally.

How To Scare A Liberal

Nat Hentoff has penned liberal viewpoints for decades. Not necessarily modern “liberal” viewpoints, which are statist, fascist, anti-constitutional. Hentoff reveres the constitution and its guarantees of freedoms for individuals and freedom from government-by-pit-bull. In other words he is an old line liberal, as opposed to the new court-activist, anti-democracy Democrats.

Hentoff has stood against the would-be tyrants and anti-democrats of the past half century. In an on-line article for Jewish World Review, Hentoff claims never to have been scared; but now he is:

“I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.”
[emphasis added]

Hentoff discusses the Emmanuel “Complete Lives System” of deciding the value of a particular human to be weighed against the cost of health services:

“Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.”

Hentoff quotes "Wesley J. Smith, a continually invaluable reporter and analyst of, as he calls his most recent book, the "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" (Encounter Books).

Smith:

"Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.

"This is where the real mischief could be done because most regulatory actions are effectuated beneath the public radar. It is thus essential, as just one example, that any end-of-life counseling provision in the final bill be specified to be purely voluntary … and that the counseling be required by law to be neutral as to outcome. Otherwise, even if the legislation doesn't push in a specific direction — for instance, THE GOVERNMENT REFUSING TREATMENT — the regulations could." (Emphasis added.) “

As the Democrats have shown in the past, they are perfectly willing to slip nasty legislation into previously innocuous bills at 3 a.m., and then initiate the legislation by executive order – without a vote. There are plenty of sneak procedures available to congress to produce legislation secretly and without scrutiny.

Hentoff:

“Condemning the furor at town-hall meetings around the country as "un-American," Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are blind to truly participatory democracy — as many individual Americans believe they are fighting, quite literally, for their lives.

”I wonder whether Obama would be so willing to promote such health care initiatives if, say, it were 60 years from now, when his children will — as some of the current bills seem to imply — have lived their fill of life years, and the health care resources will then be going to the younger Americans?”

Hentoff should realize that Obama’s children will be so wealthy that insurance will be a non-issue for them. Mostly the elderly poor will suffer under Obama’s scheme.

Quote of the Day

"Always love your country - but never trust your government!"
Robert Novak, 1931 - 2009

Is This Dissenter A Racist?

Obama's speech in Arizona was met with protests, including this man:

"I'm exercising my right as an American in Arizona," he said. "I'm actually totally against healthcare in this way, in this manner, stealing it from people. I don't think that's appropriate."

The man also carried a hand gun on his hip and a round of ammunition in his back pocket, all completely legal.

He said he's fighting both health care and his right to carry a firearm in public.

"I come from another state where open carry is legal, but no one does it, so police don't really know about it, and they harass people and arrest people falsely," he said. "In America, people have the ability to fight back and resist."

YES WE CAN!

Amateur Liars Should Keep Quiet

Obama was lying the first time I heard him. He hasn’t stopped ever since. But to be a decently accomplished liar, one needs to remember previous statements that are contradictory. The ObamaCare issue has prompted a tsunami of lies coming out of the Left in general and Obama specifically. Blogger justoneminute has linked two of Obama’s statements from the New York Times to demonstrate the falseness:

This is now:

"On Saturday, he [Obama] added a personal story of his own, citing the death of his grandmother to push back against unsubstantiated claims that he wants to establish government “death panels” that would deny care to elderly patients."

President:
“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love who’s aging deteriorate, and have to struggle with that,” Mr. Obama said. “So the notion that somehow I ran for public office, or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma? I mean, when you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest.”

That was then [waaay back in April]:

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?
I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

As justoneminute points out, if you listened to Obama the first time and remembered it, well, you are “simply dishonest”:

"It's Times-world - Obama can say whatever he wants and later say whatever else he wants, then denounce the people still grappling with the previous version.

Imagine my surprise."

Obama's undoing just might be his inability to stop talking coupled with his inability to lie with competence.

Quote of the Day

Tim Pawlenty, (Gov-R, Minn) [From politico.com]

“It appears that President Obama is making great progress on climate change, he is changing the political climate in the country back to Republican,” Pawlenty said during a speech to the second annual GOPAC conference in Chicago.

“He went around the country last fall promising ‘change we can believe in,’ but now we see it’s about changing what we believe in,” said Pawlenty, an anticipated 2012 Republican presidential contender. “We need to be calling out the flaws and misguided decisions of the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration.”

Pawlenty characterized Obama as an “extreme left liberal” proposing a health care plan “that we don’t recognize as supporters of the free market.”

“Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage?” asked Pawlenty
.
“We have an educational system in the United States that isn’t cash for clunkers, it’s clash for flunkers,” he said. “This idea in this country that anyone is forced to go to a bad school is disgraceful.”

“This is the civil rights issue of our time,” he said, describing the plight of inner city schools and urging the state lawmakers in the crowd to address the lower performances of schools in some of their states more depressed areas. “It is a disgrace and it is a moral imperative…we need to rise up and fix this.”

We should not forget that Obama's children are driven to an elite private school, an option that Obama specifically removed from poor black children in D.C. in his first few days presiding over "change".

Republicans have a lot of confidence restoration to do, themselves. However, Pawlenty is worth watching.