Now ask yourself a question.  Why did you find that clip shocking (assuming you did)? 

 

Was is because a person got hit by a truck?

 

or

 

Was it because a child got hit by a truck?

 

For most people it is because the victim was a child.  While we might feel sympathy if the victim was an adult, that gut reaction isn't as strong.  Think of some books, movies, or even real life situations that really grab at you or shock you.  Was The Exorcist more or less shocking because the person possesed was a young child?  How about when the young boy gets hit by the truck in Pet Cemetary?  Not only was that a major plot point, but it was the most lingering image from an otherwise horrible movie.  Why can we raise tens of thousands of dollars for child cancer victims, even creating an organization that grants many terminally ill children their "last wish", and yet we have difficulty raising money or even being too upset over the plight of adults with breast or prostrate cancer? 

 

It is because in this society (American specifically...the morals seem to be different in other societies) we have elevated children to a special place.  Not just a special place, but I would say even a sacred place.  We justify so many wrongs in this society, so many trampling of rights, all because it is "For The Children".  Why was one of the first bills passed by the new congress and President, the updated S-CHIP bill?  A bill that extended Government backed medical coverage to children in families making well above the poverty line (I believe a family can make up to $60,0000 now and still qualify).  It wasn't because this population of children was underserved with medical coverage and if the debate had been about extending Medicaid benefits to adults making up to 3 times the poverty rate it would never have passed.  However, the image of children without medical coverage was enough to make this a winning argument and justified the confiscation of someone's property to give to another.  Here is a list of Government mandates and restrictions on freedom off the top of my head that have all been done "For The Children":

 

 

 

 

 

One of the hallmarks of the current administration and President is the blatant ways in which they attempt to mold language and message for the press in ways that skew political debate.  I realize this is not a new thing, considering the last administration’s history of pushing the pro-Iraq-war message in the run up to Operation Freedom.  However, two quick bits today brought it home.

            The first was yet another article on the Chrysler fiasco and all of the pressure that has been leveled against the senior creditors who refuse to be pushed aside by a Government that want to blatantly ignore the laws of contracts and bankruptcy.  The frightening aspect of this article is a recounting from a lawyer representing one of the senior creditors who decided to back out of the lawsuit because of threats of a media-based lashing from the Whitehouse (of course the Whitehouse denies this report).  Read this passage below (I’ve highlighted the most egregious part):

I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday," Lauria said on a Detroit radio show. "One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence." Lauria said that his clients were willing to compromise on 50 cents on the dollar, but the government offered them only 29 cents.

You read that right, not under threat that the company was breaking any laws or regulations, but a threat that their reputation would be destroyed!  Sound familiar to any other industry in the US currently (hint: they build things that fly).

                The second was a brief note about the President’s spin on his budget cuts.  It seems that he was unhappy with the generally negative or at least less than glowing coverage of these cuts by reporters.  Therefore the President took it upon himself to talk to reporters and tell them exactly how to report the issue.  Here is part of his quote (rest is linked in the article):

"It is important, though, for all of you, as you're writing up these stories, to recognize that $17 billion taken out of our discretionary, non-defense budget, as well as portions of our defense budget, are significant," he said. "They mean something."

Now if the President seems to be pleading for positive coverage he is.  My problem with this is much like an earlier post about style v substance.  This President and his administration realize they have a very powerful tool in the Bully Pulpit and have attempted to take advantage of it in a way that no other President has since Reagan.  The issue is not that they are using this power, but that they are using it to straightjacket the press, silence opposition, threaten free businesses, and destroy American industries.  More style over substance.

Evil Out

I have been saying since President Obama made his budget priorities clear that his mantra of education, energy, and healthcare had problems.  Beyond the obvious fact that those three industries have experienced the most Government control of any American industry and have all had increasingly suspect levels of performance, there is also the fact that there is no evidence that increasing the spending and Government spending will have any affect at all on the current economic crisis.  Despite the President’s claim that:  "You can't fix the economy," he has repeatedly said, "without fixing health care." 

 

However, I didn’t have any real numbers to back up my argument.  This article on Reason.com gives the numbers regarding the healthcare side of the argument and takes a shot at the President’s assertions.  The opening lays it out:

…the president needs to take a big chill pill before committing America to a huge new entitlement: One is hard pressed to find any evidence from abroad showing that universal coverage has grown the major industrialized economies more than ours in the past—or shielded them more than us from the global slump now.

Following on the opening it talks about the fact that most countries with Universal care have performed worse than the US in good times and bad:

But whatever else universal coverage might bring, there is no evidence that it will bring economic nirvana. If anything, contrary to what the president suggests, the correlation runs the other way for countries with universal coverage such as Canada, England, France, Germany, and Japan. On nearly every economic front, their performance has been worse than America's—even, surprisingly, in controlling health care costs.

In actuality America is much wealthier overall than those countries:

All of this has made Americans much wealthier than all these countries, given that Americans' per capita income in 2006, adjusted for purchasing parity, was about $6,000 more than the next country, England.

But what about reining in overall health care costs?

The one remaining economic argument for universal health insurance in the United States is that it will help rein in medical costs. The rap against America is that it spends over 15 percent of its GDP on health care—more than any other industrialized country—and yet leaves upwards of 45 million people uninsured. If it had universal coverage, the theory goes, uninsured folks would get care sooner—not wait till they have a medical emergency—saving the system a ton of money.

It is a nice theory, but there is no evidence that it is true. Although America's per capita health care spending soared in the 1980s, a 2007 study by Kaiser Family Foundation found that it slowed considerably in subsequent years. Indeed, between 1990 and 2003, the rate of growth of America's per capita spending was 3.6 percent, only a little bit higher than France, Germany and Japan's—but significantly lower than England's 4.2 percent. That's striking given that England engages in the most aggressive rationing known to the free world, routinely delaying care to patients unless they are critically ill.

Finally the article sums up the argument against the President’s assertion with this final paragraph.  The main point is highlighted below:

All in all, there is no major industrialized economy with universal coverage that has performed as well—let alone better—than the United States in the last decade. Universal coverage might not be the cause of their inferior performance. But the crucial point is that there is zero evidence that it has put them on a more solid footing. Before applying this exotic therapy to America, Obama needs to offer more than mere hunches that it will work. He needs to offer actual evidence.

There you have it.  I am sure if we look at education and energy and the direct “effects” they have on our economy will show similar results.  So if you really want Universal coverage Mr. President, then tell us you want it.  Don’t wrap it up in language of preventing or fixing economic problems.

 

Evil Out

After attempting to control and micro-manage the GM and Chrysler and attempting to force Chrysler and its’ creditors to accept a horrid bankruptcy deal; The whole situation is going to court.  Which is where it belonged in the first place.  The first two paragraphs of the WSJ article sets the stage:

President Obama's broadside against bankers yesterday illustrates better than any argument ever could that bankruptcy court, and not the political arena, is where Chrysler belongs. Yesterday's filing isn't the end of the U.S. auto industry, or even necessarily of Chrysler, and it offers the best chance to protect all parties under the rule of law.

"I don't stand with those who held out when everyone else is making sacrifices," Mr. Obama nonetheless declared, blaming what he called "a small group of speculators" for the car maker's Chapter 11 filing. To hear the President tell it, you'd never know that Chrysler had borrowed, and since frittered away, the $6.9 billion that it owes to those "speculators." The Administration had only offered $2 billion to those secured creditors as part of its proposed restructuring for the car maker. So it's hardly a surprise that many lenders would rather take their chances in bankruptcy court.

This frightening part of the President’s statement is once again how he is painting legitimate businessmen and investors as villains (bring back memories of the aircraft industry).  While I disagree and dislike the Government “controlled” direction this administration is taking, the idea that our own President would then demonize any people who stand in his way smacks of McCarthyism and the delusional anti-communism of the 50s. 

This article by Neal Boortz also outlines this administration’s attack on the so-called “non-TARP” lenders:

But there's another group threatening the secured non-TARP creditors. That would be the White House. Lauria and others have claimed that people within the Obama administration have made it clear that if any of these secured lenders get in the way of Obama's gift to the unions the White House will work to destroy their reputation. Now the White House denies this. What would you expect? But listen to the language ... Obama has attacked these people in public as being "vultures" and has painted them as evil capitalists who don't want to stand by the families of Chrysler workers. If he'll do this in public, what do you think his attack dogs will do in private?

This “crisis” has exposed the ugly underbelly of many of the Liberal movers and shakers in Washington and has shown how far they will go to get their agenda passed.  Attacking our own countrymen to score political points and destroying industries to exert control over the economy are the tactics they have been employing and it is a frightening day for freedom.

 Evil Out

With articles like this it is no wonder that many people are starting to become more and more skeptical about the science behind man-made global warming theories.  Perusing the article it is readily apparent that both labs that are working on this problem are more concerned with reshaping and redefining the debate about carbon than they are actually checking their science.  The apocalyptic headline makes it sound like the world is in immediate danger and that these labs have uncovered the key and time when we have gone past the “tipping point”.  However, reading into the meat of the article you quickly come across the assertion that we “might” or “probably” will reach these arbitrary crisis points (or by implication we may not).

 

The fact that most global warming or climate change modeling is based on fictional formulas with constants that are impossible to define is well documented and throws into question the heavy dependence of “warmers” on these self-same models.  With the continued evidence that we have entered a cooling period, that solar activity has more impact on the temperature than CO2, and the questionable science behind advocates like Algore, it is only a matter of time before this “crisis” fades into the same obscurity that the coming ice-age, nuclear winter, and the 2012 end of the Aztec calendar fall into.  Wake up before these people manage to destroy the economy of the industrialized world and stifle the growth of third-world countries.

 

Evil Out

Here is the round-up for this week:

 

Talk about the coming fight over Free Speech and the FCC

Bruce Willis going back to his action "roots"

The members of the press are acting like "school girls in love"

The Truth behind Obama's Tax Cuts

Obama gets "his" budget

People going nuts over "Avatar"

So why are most Christian themed movies so bad?
The final part of the good, bad, & maybe
Microsoft responds to the EU anti-trust lawsuit
IBM puts its new intuitive answer system on Jeopardy
Windows 7 is looking good
Congress set for a new review of the skilled workers visa program
The failure of making public records public
What's coming in the President's next 100 days
What is the future of the "new" news media?
Violent protests?  the Teaparties? No, here is the story of the real violent protests in Washington DC
Speaking of DC how about a parking ticket for parking in your own driveway
Paygo is coming back and your taxes will go up
How not to avoid jury duty
Texas backing out of federal gas tax
Delaware university "re-education" dorms, 1984 anyone?
Fox is the conservative network, MSNBC is the liberal network, should CNN become the libertarian network
Jimmy Carter just wants to ban just the guns that kill people
Obama is extending the tentacles of Government into everything

 

Enjoy

 

Evil Out