In order for collectivists (socialists, progressives, fascists, communists, etc.) to check their morality, they need only remove government as the intermediary of their programs. When they are exposed as clubbing other people for “charity,” housing rights, medical rights, job rights and all the other rights inimical to the right to self-ownership, property, and the liberty to use it, their brute force will lay naked for all to see. That they rely on government agents to do their mugging for them is an indication of their bravery. At least union members do not hesitate to threaten or use force, but they too often rely on paid goons. ~ Bill Holmes
Category Archives: big government
Health Insurance penalties
In the health care bill passed last Tuesday (10/13/2009) by the Senate Finance Committee, adults who do not purchase health insurance would face an excise-tax penalty of $200 a year starting in 2014 and rising gradually to $750 in 2017.
Let’s analyze this. You can pay whatever you are paying per month now for insurance or you can forgo buying insurance and pay an annual penalty knowing that you can buy insurance later when you need it. Simple trade-off there. Pay $500/month for health insurance now or pay $200/year penalty and only pay the $500 when you need it.
If even a percentage of people wait until they are sick to get coverage, costs will go up on the people who do not try to cheat the system.
The Federal government has one method of making a “universal coverage” mandate viable: huge taxes that everyone has to pay followed by jail if they don’t. Every other method can, and will, be gamed. Look at all the other government programs that people cheat on: from military purchases, to food stamps being, to Social Security (relatives of the dead still collecting), to Medicare, to Medicaid (dump your assets so you qualify) to taxes. Government socialized health care will be no different.
Even ignoring the Constitutionality of it, do we really want jail time for not having health insurance in what is supposed to be free country?
Overt Racism by Louisiana Judge!
Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell in Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward refused to perform an “inter-racial” marriage (see here). Now Gov. Bobby Jindal is calling on him to have his license revoked.
While they are right, this “Justice” is anything but someone who dispenses “justice” and should be forced to resign, will the same standard be applied to the racist, sexist Justice Sonia Sotomayor who repeated, over two decades statements such as:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” – Judge Sonia Sotomayor, 2001 (similar statements were made in 1994, 1999, 2000 and 2003)
Racism and sexism have no place any court and yet the Obama Administration and Congress have appointed a racist, sexist Supreme Court Justice and heralded it as a step forward.
Racism and sexism on the court is a step backwards. (And the concept of “race” being defined by skin color makes about as much sense as saying “she is a green” because her eyes are green, or “he is a blue” because his eyes or blue, or “he is a red” because he has red hair. It is absolute insanity to think that skin color would change someone’s “race”. We’re all part of the human race, let’s just get over it. Too bad Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Bardwell are too uneducated and bigoted to appreciate reality. And too bad Congress and the President support a sexist, racist like Justice Sotomayor.)
It wasn’t until approximately 120-140 years ago (depending on the area) that the government began getting involved in the marriage licensing business and providing differing impacts based on your marital status. Until that point it was a religious issue. If you found someone to marry you, you got married. Imagine how that would make the political arguments today like this one? They’d go away, it would be the private business of the parties involved. It would be no one else’s business. Likewise it wasn’t until well after the income tax was passed that it was used to encourage (or discourage) marriage. Again, if the government treated individuals equally, it would not be an issue. At the time of the Founding, the thought that the states would be involved in licensing marriage would have been a foreign concept.
As you can see by the comments below, when government gets involved, you end up with a political fight. Which is the intent. That is why (as described here) power-hungry politicians want the government involved in the maximum of issues – they can then divide us and keep their power.
Finally, it is not the business of the Justice here to determine whether or not he personally approves or whether he believes it will harm any potential children. His job is to enforce the law and the laws of the state do not prohibit inter-‘racial’ marriage. Legislation from the bench is wrong no matter who is doing it. If he can not uphold his oath to enforce the laws of the state (or Federal) he should resign. A judge who will not enforce the law is not qualified to serve. Whether he likes it or not, it is just too bad.
Racism is discrimination based on skin color, aka “race” (“colorism” or “skinism” would probably be a more accurate term). Anyone, no matter the language they speak, the color of the eyes, skin or hair, gender or where they are from, who makes distinctions based on the color of someone’s skin is not just racist, they are ignorant. Discrimination for someone’s idea of a good cause is as evil as discrimination for a bad cause.
No doubt the KKK thought their racism was for a “good cause,” but that does not mean it was not ignorant and was not racism. The government must be color-blind in all its affairs or it is condoning racism – for example, affirmative action is not color blind. Just as slavery is bad whether it is “for someone’s idea of a good cause,” “for no cause,” or “for a bad cause” discrimination based on the color of someone’s skin is bad no matter what the motivation. People who discriminate “for” one group are discriminating “against” another and it is wrong, evil, and only encourages strife. Discriminating against the innocent today for the sins of the guilty of the past is fair to no individual, but blatantly promoted by the race peddlers today. Discrimination in favor of the innocent today against other innocents today does nothing to help the people harmed in the past. In short discrimination today will do nothing to remedy the discrimination of the past. Everyone’s ancestors were discriminated against at one point or another. But I am not owed a debt by the people that did it to my ancestors, nor does anyone owe the reverse. The sins of the great-grandmothers are not the sins of the sons.
Anyone who favors discrimination based on skin color is a racist. Period. Anyone who is against Martin Luther King’s dream of people being judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin is a racist by the definition of racism. Affirmative action judges people differently based on the color of their skin. It may be uncomfortable to hear, but affirmative action advocates are racist just as the KKK, no matter that they think racism for a good cause is justified. Just as Robert Byrd, Democrat Senator, former KKK was a blatant pro-KKK racist until at least 1982, affirmative action advocates will eventually have to confront the fact that they are judging people by the color of their skin, just as the KKK does. There are plenty of racists who think “racism for a good cause” is okay, but the impact is the same, you are judging based on the color of someone’s skin, the most evil and ludicrous distinction that can be made.
When the government uses force to enforce racism it is even worse. Being an ignorant individual is protected in a free society, but government racism is not. Everyone is free to be stupid, ignorant, smart or anything else as long as they are willing to bear the cost of so being. People are free to make good decisions and bad decisions as long as they are the ones who pay the price for doing so. However, as the Justices above are both ignorant racists, it is impossible to uphold the law of the land while continuing their racist statements. Being a racist officer of the court is not protect nor should it be tolerated.
Anything that is government controlled becomes political.
One of the reasons the United States was founded with a Constitution that limits the power of the Federal Government is to preserve freedom. For the Founders, preserving liberty was their primary concern. When government controls and interferes everywhere, liberty is then lost. Instead of the freedom to spend the products of your own life as you see fit, you are forced to vote to spend the products of everyone’s lives the way a majority sees fit. This is the antithesis of the Founder’s vision and a moral abomination. But to make matters worse, when you lose the right to dispose of the products of your own life and effort as you see fit, you become a slave to the majority. There is no right to enslave people by force — or by vote. Any attempt to do so will justifiably result in acrimoniousness between the potential slaves and their masters.
As one should have noticed over the last 90 years, the more the government gets invovled, the more vitriol every decision evokes. When everything is government controlled, everything is political. When any group decides it can vote itself the rewards provided by some other group, disaster will ensue. Instead of freedom being the operative concept, power-hungry politicians use group and identity politics to increase the involvement of government in as many sectors as possible, knowing that they can then divide people based on differing opinions. From science to medicine any government involvement means more issues to argue over and divide over.
Group politics – whether economic or “racial*” – only serves one group, those seeking power. Everyone else loses when they are manipulated into the belief that it is moral to vote yourself ‘benefits’ at someone else’s expense. Group politics is used to divide and conquer.
Group politics mean dividing people based on skin color (e.g. affirmative action cares about it), religion, income or many other categories. Stir up resentment that this “other” group is doing something to harm another or that something is unfair and the government will correct it at the point of a gun. Instant voting block. Instant issue and instant power. The individual is the smallest group and the only one with rights. Every other distinction is disingenuous and used merely by those in power to maintain control.
[*racial: we are all the human race here, the concept of “race” is an ignorant one]
Health Care Plantation
‘The greatest good for the greatest number.’ … Every dictator who ever lived has justified the enslavement of his people on the theory of what was good for the majority. Ronald Reagan, January 25, 1974
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism — by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
Ayn Rand
The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others). There is no such thing as ‘the right to enslave.’ A nation can do it, just as a man can become a criminal – but neither can do it by right. Ayn Rand
If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as ‘the right to enslave.’ Ayn Rand
The issue is not slavery for a ‘good’ cause versus slavery for a bad cause; the issue is not dictatorship by a good gang versus dictatorship by a bad gang. The issue is freedom versus dictatorship. Ayn Rand
Carper says health care bill confusing, incomprehensible
Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del) described the health care bill language as “confusing,” “hard stuff to understand,” and “incomprehensible.” Read the entire interview.
Last Olympic games in 2016 due to Global Warming says Tokyo Governor
It could be that the 2016 Games are the last Olympics in the history of mankind Global warming is getting worse. We have to come up with measures without which Olympic Games could not last long. Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return. Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo governor
One has to note the part where he says “Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return.” So there is nothing to be done since there is no return from here.
The Republican health care plan is this: Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.
The Republican health care plan is this: Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly. Alan Grayson (Unstable-D-FL)
Two words: unstable, lunatic.
He needs to read what Former Democrat Colorado Governor Richard Lamm said in March 1984 regarding the terminally ill aged: “We’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.” (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/29/us/gov-lamm-asserts-elderly-if-very-ill-have-duty-to-die.html)
Obama a socialist – Andy Williams
I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist. Obama is following Marxist theory. He’s taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail.
Andy Williams, September 28 2009
Jail for not buying health insurance or paying the fine.
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a note from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold stating that under section 7203 people who failed to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance would be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty.
The Politico and others are acting as if this is surprising. It is not. Jail at the point of a gun is the final “argument” from the government.
Our freedom slipping away day by day. Loss of freedom for any reason, even one that some say is a ‘good cause’ is evil.