You know you lost the debate when you play the race card.
NYT's Paul Krugman writes;

But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s
citizenship.

53% Now Oppose Congressional Health Care Reform
From Rasmussen

Who We Are
From Hot Air

We don’t like having to fight desperate battles to save our freedom and future from socialist politicians every ten or twenty years. We don’t like having our time wasted with trillion-dollar statist fantasies, when our government is already trillions of dollars in the red. We’re tired of checking the papers each day, to see which group of us has been targeted as enemies of the State. We’re growing impatient waiting for the Democrats to come up with ideas that don’t require their supporters to hate someone. We’ve had our fill of “progressives” who act as if we’re living in 1909, and none of their diseased policies have ever been tried before.

Read it all

Wow, go Neil; Cavuto to Obama "Stop demagoging your critics, jackass"
Via Hotair

Know Your Town Hall Mob Agitators!
From IowaHawk

Greetings citizen! By now you may have heard scattered rumors of state and party officials encountering reactionary resistors at local health care reform information programs. Do not be alarmed, for our 5-year plan for citizen health proceeds without delay. Remain stalwart! The truth can be told at last, that these so-called "protests" are merely the desperate rear flank mob actions of dead-end bandits and saboteurs in the pay of enemy insurance agents.

Poll: Use of atomic bombs in WWII OK
From the Washington Times

A majority of Americans surveyed think dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was the right thing to do, but support was weaker among Democrats, women, younger voters and minority voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.
The poll, released Tuesday, found 61 percent of the more than 2,400 American voters questioned think the U.S. did the right thing; 22 percent called it wrong, and 16 percent were undecided.

Why are we still polling this 60 year old issue. It has been firmly established that (A)Using nuclear weapons is a bad thing. (B.) World War II was an equally bad thing. (C) Using A. to finish B. was a good thing. The fact that democrats and younger people increasing doubt this is because while they can understand A. they don't know shit about B. So what is the point in asking?

I hear this lifestyle will soon be back in vogue, plan to attend:
Britt Iowa, National Hobo Convention -- August 6th-9th 2009

Ministry of Love

Due to the recent resistance to the healthcare legislation the Obama admistration is requesting that you report any seditious matierial, web sites, emails, or videos to the Ministry of Love at flag@whitehouse.gov.

Whats Next?

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled. That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing, or executing his trust or duty: and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise, or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanour, and on conviction before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term of not less than six months, nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court, may be holden to find sureties for his good behaviour, in such sum, and for such time, as the said court may direct.

SECT. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either House of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States; or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the Constitution of the United States; or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act; or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Words of Wisdom

'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.' Anon.

Stolen from Maggies Farm

Why Most Journalists Are Democrats.
From Psychology Today

Unsurprisingly, self-selection plays an important role in choosing a job. People choosing to do work related to prisons, for example, commonly show quite different characteristics than those who volunteer for work in helping disadvantaged youths. Academicians have very different characteristics than CEOs—or politicians, for that matter.

Harry Stein, former ethics editor of Esquire, once said: "Journalism, like social work, tends to attract individuals with a keen interest in bettering the world.” In other words, journalists self-select based on a desire to help others. Socialism, with its “spread the wealth” mentality intended to help society’s underdogs, sounds ideal.

Crisis of Confidence: America's Government Losing Faith in Out-of-Touch Constituents
From Iowa Hawk

...Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that America's hard-working hometown legislators are feeling the pinch from a fickle and increasingly out-of-touch voter class who no longer serves our needs.

Nowhere has this disturbing trend been more evident than in the recent debate over health care reform. Like hundreds of our fellow legislators and government officials, we recently traveled to a town hall meeting to distribute a grassroots press release explaining why this critical legislation is a done deal. Our advance staffs said that should anticipate a respectful, positive hearing from local media and bused-in union members. Instead we were greeted by a rude howling mob of idiot "voters" who refused to listen to reason, and ruined what should have been a killer photo op for our re-election ad campaign.

A Salmon Apology; I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have been remiss in linking to the always funny IowaHawk lately despite the fact that 98% of my 3.5 daily readers find their way here from the IowaHawk site. I would like to suggest that the other 2%of my readers make the IowaHawk a regular stop.

And while I'm at it; I would also like to welcome Blog de KingShamus and ask that you click through and check it out.

On the Lighter Side

Ellen Degeneres; Commencement Address at Tulane University
Via The Anchoress

The Obligatory "Obama's Socialized Medicine Trojan Horse"


Meanwhile...the Peasants are Lighting the Torches and Sharpening the Pitchforks.
Philadelphia, Pa
St. Paul, Mn
Austin, Tx
Kansas City Ks
Asheville, NC

The Top Ten List of why "The system is collapsing" argument is a fallacy.
From: The Hoover Institution

Is Economic Equality Worth the Loss of Prosperity?
From: RCP

As our nation remakes itself into a European social democracy, bidding farewell to American Exceptionalism, we hear constant calls for "sacrifice." Have you wondered exactly what it is that we've been asked to give up?

What 'Right' to Health Care?
From: RCM

Those who want to see an end to spiraling medical costs should challenge the premises behind the government interventions.

The first premise is moral: that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no right to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. Health care is a service, which we all need, and none of us are better served by our
lives and our doctors under coercive bureaucratic control.

The second premise is economic: that the government can produce a positive result by redistributing thousands of billions of dollars from its most productive citizens. This is the road to stagnation and national bankruptcy, not universal prosperity.

Return from Airplane Heaven

We returned from Oshkosh Friday night and while I had intended to post a daily review of the event I was once again thwarted in my effort to blog the adventure due to poor wifi reception, sore feet and cold beers. So today I will give a short recap and time permitting post some photos on Flikr for my aviation friends.

Oshkosh is, in a word, Fantastic! Even though this is my third trip in four years it is never boring. We arrived Sunday afternoon set up camp and strolled to the field to get our tickets and take a look around.

At Camp Scholler there were tents, campers, and RVs for as far as the eyes could see, everyday the parking lots seemed to be filled to overflowing, and hundreds of participants pitched camp under the wing of their planes. Despite all that you never get the impression that the place is particularly crowded, unless you wanted to grab a burger or get on board the A380 then of course the lines resemble Disneyland

Monday we spent most of the day in Aero Shell Square and explored the four hangers that are filled with vendors of everything aircraft from avionics to tools. Late afternoon thunderstorms cut short the air show and cancelled the Doobie Brothers concert however.

Tuesdays highlight was the arrival of the The White Knight(photo above) accompanied by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines fame. The plane is indeed an incredible piece of aviation engineering with it's twin fuselages joined together by a center wing. The rest of the day was spent walking the flightline and shopping at the Flymarket and rummaging through old airplane parts at the Aeromart.

Wednesday was spent mid field admiring the new aircraft on display as we wandered our way toward the north end of the field where the homebuilts were located. At 3:00 the Airbus A 380 made its US debut and performed a short airshow before landing. From the ground it appeared that someone had decided to mount wings to the hanger as it demonstrated a series of slow turns, climbs, and decents. The plane is three stories high and a max gross weight of 1.3 million pounds.

Thursday it was back to the main gate to see the new planes we missed on Wednesday. We walked the length of the flightline from the vintage aircraft area down through the aircraft camping area examining every type of airplane big and small occasionally stopping along the way to watch the arrival and departure of hundreds of aircraft from homebuilts to Russian Mig fighters. We had a radio along this year and were able to listen to the flight controllers keeping everyone sorted out. After lunch we hopped a ride to the other end of the field and spent the afternoon in the war birds area.
P51's, what a machine.

Friday we spent several hours at the float plane base on Lake Winnebago before packing up and heading home.

Wet and aerodynamic, hey how'd she get in there. (click to enlarge of course)

Hats off to the EAA, the controllers, and the hundreds of people that make this premier event possible. Most of all a big round of applause for the dedicated pilots (and their families) that spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to keep general aviation alive.

Sunday Service

The Heart of the Sourdough

There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.

There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber and rose.

There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun --
I've packed my kit and I'm going, boys, ere another day is done.

I knew it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings;
It's the olden lure, it's the golden lure, it's the lure of the timeless things,
And to-night, oh, God of the trails untrod, how it whines in my heart-strings!

I'm sick to death of your well-groomed gods, your make believe and your show;
I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shakedown in the snow;
A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another bout with the foe.

With the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the Wild that would crush and rend,
I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend;
Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out -- yet the Wild must win in the end.

I have flouted the Wild. I have followed its lure, fearless, familiar, alone;
By all that the battle means and makes I claim that land for mine own;
Yet the Wild must win, and a day will come when I shall be overthrown.

Then when as wolf-dogs fight we've fought, the lean wolf-land and I;
Fought and bled till the snows are red under the reeling sky;
Even as lean wolf-dog goes down will I go down and die.

Airventure 2009
Starting Sunday the Salmon will be blog-casting from Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh Wisconsin as we attend the 2009 Experimental Aircraft Association's Airventure. The trip was such a success last year that my friend from Alaska decided that we must go again. Thankfully the woman that lets me live with her is very understanding and she will be vacationing in beautiful upper Michigan without me this year. (Please, no Brokeback jokes)

I had intended to blog from our campground last year but our location behind the metal shed next to the broken down combine made wireless reception a challenge. This year we have decided to go all out and stay at Sleepy Hollow Farm conveniently located within walking distance of the main gate and the ever important beer tent.

The EAA web site declares!, "Cool' Factor: Off the Charts Unmatched collection of aircraft coming to Oshkosh"

More than 2,500 showplanes, including hundreds of warbirds, arrive at Oshkosh each year. In many cases, the owners, builders and pilots of these unique aircraft participate in the nearly 1,000 forums, presentations and workshops that take place during AirVenture week. Attendees can ask questions and learn more at these forums, which are included in all AirVenture admissions
Air craft to include:
Virgin Galactic VMS Mothership "Eve" (July 27-August 1): Born as "WhiteKnightTwo," VMS Eve is the next generation of civilian space carrier vehicle

Airbus A380 (July 28-31): The world's largest passenger airliner, which will also be open for public tours during its stay in Oshkosh

Predator B Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)

Staying at the field will also allow us to take advantage of the evening activities that are offered throughout the week. Monday night the Doobie Brothers (wow are they still around) will perform and there is a nightly airplane movie drive in style.

So if blogging becomes sparse, its only because we are having to damn much aero-fun.

"I had the right to remain silent but was too stupid to use it.
Headline stolen from Ron White

I was not going to comment on the Professor Gates bruhaha because it seemed like triviality. Then I came across the following Chris Rock Video that should be required viewing for all pinheaded academic types lacking any real world life experiences. (Disclaimer: Any resemblance to my fine Iowa professors, past or future, is purely coincidental;)

Via: American Digest.

Godwin's Law may apply here, A Platform for Change
From American Thinker

We're all Califorians now, The Blue-State Meltdown
From The American

Liar Liar, Health Care Mythology
From RCP

Pants on Fire, The Three Big Lies
Also From RCP

"If you like your current health-care plan, you can keep it.", You will pay less.","Quality will improve."

Sen. Tom Harkin (D,Ia) just wants us to be happy.
From the desk of Comrade Harkin

We also have to change the health care system itself, beginning with a sharp new emphasis on prevention and public health.We also have to realize that wellness and prevention must be truly comprehensive.

It is not only about what goes on in a doctor’s office. It encompasses workplace
wellness programs, community-wide wellness programs, building bike paths and walking trails, getting junk food out of our schools, making school breakfasts and lunches more nutritious, increasing the amount of physical activity our children get, and so much more...

Comprehensive health reform legislation is our opportunity to change the paradigm. We are going to extend health insurance to every American. And we are going to give our citizens access to a 21st century health care system – one that is focused on helping us to live healthy, active, happy lives.

UPDATE July 23
From the Des Moines Register
We need to RAMROD this through before people realize it smells like an Iowa hog lot in July.

Six of Iowa's seven members of Congress, including all three Democrats in the House, said Wednesday that rushing legislation to a vote by Aug. 8 could further penalize Iowa doctors and hospitals...

Sen. Tom Harkin, a senior Democrat on health-care legislation, is the lone voice among the Iowans for urgency. He said delaying action beyond the late-summer break would allow critics time to build opposition." The longer you leave it out there, the more holes you're going to have shot in it," said Harkin, a top Democrat on one of the Senate's health-writing committees. "I'd rather get something done, even if it's imperfect."

Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican on the influential Finance Committee, said the shadow that health care casts over the nation's economy suggests it is better to spend more time trying to minimize the impact on the front end than leave crucial details to be worked out in the fall by a House-Senate conference committee.

Plus, the longer the issues are aired, the more opportunity the public gets to comment, Grassley said."If we're putting up a policy that can't withstand the test of public opinion, we shouldn't be doing it in the first place," he said.

Why Obamacare Cant Work: The Hayek Argument

Two days ago I posted an argument against Obamacare from the Mises Institute that showed that the plan to fix healthcare isn't addressing the central problem; that government intervention in the system what is driving the healthcare "crisis". (scare quotes courtesy B.HO)

Today John Stassel makes what I think is the most cogent argument against government healthcare which is what Economist Fredrick Hayek described in "Fatal Conceit, the Errors in Socialism". A market economy is like a living breathing ecosystem and intervention within the system creates not only inefficiencies as the Mises article pointed out but also creates unforeseeable and potentially dangerous reactions that no person or group of persons can foresee or control. Government lending money to people that can't afford a house for example.

The biggest conceit of American Socialists is that despite overwhelming evidence that what they want to do has failed miserably where ever it has been tried and has caused more death and suffering than any previous social system they feel that they are somehow smarter and will not make the same mistakes. Or they believe, despite the evidence presented, that socialism must necessarily be better than the system we have now because there is still suffering in the world. It never ceases to amaze me that leftists see themselves as the people of reason and those on the right are the irrational ones.

From RCP:

Like the politicians, most people are oblivious to F.A. Hayek's insight that the critical information needed to run an economy -- or even 15 percent of one -- doesn't exist in any one place where it is accessible to central planners. Instead, it is scattered
piecemeal among millions of people. All those people put together are far wiser and better informed than Congress could ever be. Only markets -- private property, free exchange and the price system -- can put this knowledge at the disposal of entrepreneurs and consumers, ensuring the system will serve the people and not just the political class.

This is no less true for medical care than for food, clothing and shelter. It is profit-seeking entrepreneurship that gave us birth control pills, robot limbs, Lasik surgery and so many other good things that make our lives longer and more pain free.

To the extent the politicians ignore this, they are the enemy of our well-being. The belief that they can take care of us is rank superstition.

Flotsam and Jetsam
Thx. Dave

Thanks to Obama, Luxury cars are soon to be a thing of the past.
They have always been beyond my means but I took out a Cadillac Escalade last week for a test drive, just to drive that sucker before they become extinct.The salesman sat in the back seat describing the car and all it's wonderful options.

The seats were of particular interest.
He explained the seats directed warm air to your butt in the winter and directed cool air to your butt in the summer heat. I stated the car must be a Republican car. He asked why I thought it was a Republican car.

If it were a Democratic car the seats would just blow smoke up your ass.

It's ironic that my liberal friend sends me these jokes when he finds them so objectionable when I send them to him. I think perhaps he is just pulling my chain.

Obama Lemonade near Henderson Iowa Ragbrai got under way yesterday and this enterprising Iowa farmer has taken the cue from the President on how to generate revenue.

For the Children From American Thinker

"EMP 101" A Basic Primer & Suggestions for Preparedness
From The Silver Bear Cafe

NASA has posted some recent pictures of the Apollo landing sites on the moon and in the photo of Apollo 14 above you can actually see the foot path created by the astronauts. Now I don't want to go all conspiratorial or anything but Apollo 15, 16, and 17 was equipped with a Lunar Rover. The pictures fail to show where it was left parked or the tracks in the lunar dust from the Astronauts four wheelin adventures. This is very suspicious! Has NASA finally shown its hand or were the Rovers dragged into the lunar underworld by the ant creatures?

Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
From Mises Instatute

Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this is not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms is that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he insists, costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and the stability of the healthcare system.

Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem, his solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework within which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of control because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange between patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every well-functioning industry.

Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.

Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even private health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost reports submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through mathematical models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation and regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services should be.

Via Maggies Farm

Sunday Service

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's A race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far,
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

Socialist America sinking
From Patrick Buchanan

After half a century of fighting encroachments upon freedom in America, journalist Garet Garrett published "The People's Pottage." A year later, in 1954, he died. "The People's Pottage" opens thus:

"There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom."

Garrett wrote of a revolution within the form. While outwardly America appeared the same, a revolution within had taken place that was now irreversible. One need only glance at where we were before the New Deal, where we are and where we are headed to see how far we are off the course the Founding Fathers set for our republic.

Good enough for thee but not for me: Their Own Medicine Senators prefer the insurance they have.
From the WSJ

In the health debate, liberals sing Hari Krishnas to the "public option" -- a new federal insurance program like Medicare -- but if it's good enough for the middle class, then surely it's good enough for the political class too? As it happens, more than a few Democrats disagree.

On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new government-run health plan. Yet all Democrats -- with the exceptions of acting chairman Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski and Ted Kennedy via proxy -- voted nay.

Advice for Sarah Palin

My normally rational wife commented that maybe we should see if we qualify for the state child insurance program. I have seen normally conservative bloggers write about pricing new cars to take advantage of the government rebates. I've even had visions of sugarplums when I hear of proposals about the government paying off student loans. It's very easy to fall prey to these enticements.

The socialists dangle bits of candy in front of our collective noses and we are blinded to the fact that every piece we take chips away at liberty. None of it is free, it all comes with strings attached. What is needed now is two things. First, every freedom loving American needs to just say no to whatever Obama offers.

Second there needs to be a political realignment within the next few years. What we have now are the Social Democrats on the right and the Socialists on the the left. To borrow from H.L. Menken:

Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibalists on the other... It is a pity that this is so...

What it (democracy) needs beyond everything is a party of liberty.

Fortunately there are some outliers, such as Sarah Palin who just might pull off such a realignment. She is outside the political mainstream and has the rhetoric and popularity to get such a message out. One questions however is if she has the intellectual weight to make the case without sounding like an angry populist flatlander. The press, as she has painfully learned, has the ability to make outliers appear as cranks if they are not careful.

What she shows so far all seems to come more from the gut. Guts have thier place of course. Like quiting your job, going fishing for the week end, and then to everyones amazement jumping back into the scrum. The base loves her guts but she needs more. She has to demonstrate that she has put some thought into what she believes. It is one thing to call Obama a socialist it is another to explain how and why that is a bad thing.

With that in mind I would suggest to the Governor that she immerse herself in progressive history, read the arguments against the socialist state from people like Fredrick Hayek, and listen to the speeches of Ronald Reagan. Then over the next 6 years (this has to be a long term project) educate the mushy middle of the American polity and position yourself as the candidate for liberty.

Powerline Series: The Road to Soft Despotism

Last month I wrote that I believed the path we are now on, call it Modern Liberalism, Progressivism, or Socialism can only lead to a form of despotism. This month Professor Paul Rahe, author of the book Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect has an ongoing series at Powerline that should be a must read for anyone interested in Obama's political philosophy, where it came from, and why it matters.
Rahe writes in the first installment:

To grasp what is at stake, one must step back and consider what sort of thinking underpins the drive for what is called "health care reform." There was a time in the United States when we lived under a regime of individual rights, and as individuals we assumed responsibility for our own welfare. We worked; we saved; and we took pride in looking after ourselves. Many of us still think in this fashion, but this is not the manner in which our masters now think. We may be the heirs of the men who adopted the Declaration of Independence; those who rule us are the offspring of the Progressives, and men of this temper have dominated our political life for almost a century now.

1. Obama's Tyrannical Ambition

2. The Servile Temptation Part I

3. The Servile Temptation Part II

4. The Road to Soft Despotism Part I

5. The Road to Soft Despotism Part II

Iowans reject the "King of Pop"
From the DesMoines Register

The Iowa State Fair's annual butter sculptures will not feature a moonwalking Michael Jackson.The fair had planned to include Jackson in a buttery display celebrating the lunar landing in 1969, but word of their plans prompted complaints to fair officials. They responded by putting the issue to a seven-day online vote.The
result released Friday wasn't close — with more than 100,000 votes, Jackson lost
65 percent to 35 percent.

Healthcare Organizational Chart.


It will become more streamlined once they eliminate the bottleneck at the insurance industry and shutdown Medicare.

On Healthcare
From the Wall Street Journal

The idea that every life is infinitely precious and therefore everyone deserves the same kind of optimal medical care is a fine religious sentiment and moral ideal. As political and economic policy, it is vainglorious delusion. Rich and educated people not only receive better goods and services in all areas of life than do poor and uneducated people, they also tend to take better care of themselves and their possessions, which in turn leads to better health. The first requirement for better health care for all is not equal health care for everyone but educational and economic advancement for everyone.

Our national conversation about curbing the cost of health care is crippled by the vocabulary in which we conduct it. We must stop talking about "health care" as if it were some kind of collective public service, like fire protection, provided equally to everyone who needs it. No government can provide the same high quality body repair services to everyone. Not all doctors are equally good physicians, and not all sick persons are equally good patients.

If we persevere in our quixotic quest for a fetishized medical equality we will sacrifice personal freedom as its price. We will become the voluntary slaves of a "compassionate" government that will provide the same low quality health care to everyone.

Henry David Thoreau famously remarked, "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." Thoreau feared a single, unarmed man approaching him with such a passion in his heart. Too many people now embrace the coercive apparatus of the modern state professing the same design.

PROMISES, PROMISES: Indian health care's victims
From the AP via Hotair

On some reservations, the oft-quoted refrain is "don't get sick after June," when the federal dollars run out. It's a sick joke, and a sad one, because it's sometimes true, especially on the poorest reservations where residents cannot afford health insurance. Officials say they have about half of what they need to operate, and patients know they must be dying or about to lose a limb to get serious care.

A walk through Goverment Healthcare from our neighbors to the north.
(NO not Minnesota, Canada)

PJTVs Steven Crowder Investigates Why CanadaCare Sucks...Will ObamaCare Be Any Better?

The push for Universal Healthcare has nothing to do with health but has everything to do with "social justice". The concept that government has the obligation to ensure that we are equal in every way. The only way to ensure that however is to bring down the many to raise up the few.

Healthcare is the holy grail of socialist policy that has been pushed since the Wilson Administration. Along with controlling energy, healthcare is the vital link in the progressive program to ensure that the state and not the people are the center of power. Welcome to our Dystopia.