0 comment Wednesday, October 29, 2014 | admin
I realize it's one of life's most futile endeavors to try to understand the sub-species of people called variously "liberals" "Democrats" or "progressives". I am convinced they don't even understand themselves. It is no news to anybody who pays attention that they hold a confused mass of contradictory beliefs and that they refuse even to acknowledge the inherent contradictions in what they profess to believe, especially when their beliefs are compared with their actions.
Examples? I could give you many, and I am sure any of us could come up with different examples. But here's one, discussed recently by Steve Sailer, and discussed in the past on this blog: liberals claim to 'care' about the environment and population issues, yet they ardently advocate for mass immigration. Another: they decry and disparage White people who have large families while championing some of the most overly-fecund groups of people on the planet. You want more? They preach tolerance while shouting down and threatening those whose views are different.
Still, here I am trying to unravel their tangled ideas and make some sense of them.
I realize anecdotes are not proof of anything (unlike liberals, who belief anecdotes alone can prove their points or refute opponents' points) but anecdotes can illustrate patterns.
A friend and I were puzzling over the behavior and statements of two people we know, both of whom are Democrats and both of whom, predictably, voted for the present regime. Both are also women, but one is an elderly lady of 80 or so, while the other is a relative youngster at 50.
The commonality between these women, besides having voted for ''hope and change'', is that they are both White -- and both have some very politically incorrect beliefs on race. The octogenarian lady, understandably, given her age, uses some very politically incorrect language; she tends to be very blunt and salty, and prolifically uses the 'n-word.' The younger woman is a little more steeped in the PC pieties which have saturated our media (and our minds) for the last few decades. Yet recently she surprised me by offering an unsolicited opinion that when it comes to marriage and reproduction, people should 'stay with their own kind.' This rather took me by surprise, knowing that this woman voted as she did, and considering that she and I don't usually discuss these 'controversial' topics. Her burst of candor was provoked by her recently learning that a family friend had married interracially and had two biracial children of the union.
The older lady, I would suspect, would agree with her rather bluntly. Yet both of these women voted not just for a black president, but they support the multicultural/diversity agenda promoted by the political party they've chosen.
How can we explain this?
I've noticed this pattern with other Democrat/liberal people -- usually with women. A past co-worker of mine was quite the Democrat partisan, and a typical dilettante liberal, involved in every sort of hippy-dippy liberal/lefty/New-Age-y cause, but she too would say these very politically incorrect things on race. After returning from a day-long outing to Chinatown, though she loved her 'diversity', she announced it was wonderful to be back among her own kind. She also informed me that she would no longer hire Asians because she had had an Asian immigrant employee who quit without notice.
In my recent post 'Silence gives consent' I discussed how it seems that many people do not really, deep-down, believe in this multicultural, anti-White order that we have. They may give lip service to it, but the multicult propagandists don't seem to have succeeded in completely overwriting all of the innate natural preferences people have, regarding race and ethnicity, or in erasing the traces of the old cultural order, which allowed people to take note of the obvious differences among groups of people -- and to act accordingly. There are still some vestiges of these things even among liberals; whether you believe it is innate or learned, it's still there.
I suppose the FReepers and the rest of the colorblind conservative crowd would seize on the above anecdotes as more proof that 'liberals are the real racists' and 'Democrats are the haters, not Republicans.' No, I don't believe it's that simple, and moreover I think it's high time Republicans stopped trying to outdo the Democrats at currying favor with minorities and proving their lack of 'racism.'
Do these 'racist' liberals realize that their words don't fit their professed beliefs, and that it is bizarre to vote for a party or an ideology that would actually condemn them for even having taboo thoughts about race? Or is it understood somehow that if you vote the correct way, you get a free pass on certain politically incorrect statements because you are not a Republican or 'conservative'? Maybe that's the deal; in much the same way, blacks can freely use the 'n-word' while Whites are raked over the coals for even saying anything that remotely sounds like the n-word -- remember the furore over the word 'niggardly'? And we've all seen examples of lefty celebrities getting a pass on saying taboo things, while a Mel Gibson or a Dr. Laura are pilloried and all but run out of town.
I am left with just one plausible explanation as to why certain White people who seem to be somewhat racially aware still side with non-Whites politically, and support a political agenda that is anti-White to the core. The only explanation that might begin to make some sense of it is that the right, whether the Republican Party or conservatives in general or White Christians are portrayed as being so odious and so reprehensible that the only 'decent' thing to do is to vote Democrat. Somebody has done a very good job of villainizing the right, and the traditional order of things in this country.
There are people who voted for the current order of things who are not the brainwashed 'mad-dog liberals', as Cambria Will Not Yield calls them. They are not the true-believer ideologues or the nihilists that make up many of the so-called 'anti-fascist' young radicals. They are just people, often passive or uninformed, who have been persuaded that White 'conservatives' are a bigger danger to this country than any other group of people.
And though the statement I'm about to make may step on some toes, the fact is, the right can at times be its own worst enemy. When I was a liberal I believed, as liberals/leftists universally believe, that the right, including the not-that-conservative Republicans, are the champions of big corporations, big business, globalism, fat cats, and so on. There is something to this; all too often, the Republican Party is dominated by the Country Club 'respectables' who care only about their financial interests and the good opinion of their peers. There is too little regard for the salt-of-the-earth people of this country among many 'conservatives.' Therefore some rather well-intentioned but not very perceptive people have deluded themselves into thinking that the Democrat Party is for ''The People'' or ''the working man.'' Such of course is not the case; they, too, are the party of the elites and the 'fat cats' and the globalist predators, but they have managed to fool many people into buying the notion of their compassion.
I can only think that many people are still Democrats only because they have come to be convinced that the Democrats truly are the lesser of the evils. Whatever negative views they hold about the favored victim groups, their negative opinions of the Republicans are stronger.
Examples? I could give you many, and I am sure any of us could come up with different examples. But here's one, discussed recently by Steve Sailer, and discussed in the past on this blog: liberals claim to 'care' about the environment and population issues, yet they ardently advocate for mass immigration. Another: they decry and disparage White people who have large families while championing some of the most overly-fecund groups of people on the planet. You want more? They preach tolerance while shouting down and threatening those whose views are different.
Still, here I am trying to unravel their tangled ideas and make some sense of them.
I realize anecdotes are not proof of anything (unlike liberals, who belief anecdotes alone can prove their points or refute opponents' points) but anecdotes can illustrate patterns.
A friend and I were puzzling over the behavior and statements of two people we know, both of whom are Democrats and both of whom, predictably, voted for the present regime. Both are also women, but one is an elderly lady of 80 or so, while the other is a relative youngster at 50.
The commonality between these women, besides having voted for ''hope and change'', is that they are both White -- and both have some very politically incorrect beliefs on race. The octogenarian lady, understandably, given her age, uses some very politically incorrect language; she tends to be very blunt and salty, and prolifically uses the 'n-word.' The younger woman is a little more steeped in the PC pieties which have saturated our media (and our minds) for the last few decades. Yet recently she surprised me by offering an unsolicited opinion that when it comes to marriage and reproduction, people should 'stay with their own kind.' This rather took me by surprise, knowing that this woman voted as she did, and considering that she and I don't usually discuss these 'controversial' topics. Her burst of candor was provoked by her recently learning that a family friend had married interracially and had two biracial children of the union.
The older lady, I would suspect, would agree with her rather bluntly. Yet both of these women voted not just for a black president, but they support the multicultural/diversity agenda promoted by the political party they've chosen.
How can we explain this?
I've noticed this pattern with other Democrat/liberal people -- usually with women. A past co-worker of mine was quite the Democrat partisan, and a typical dilettante liberal, involved in every sort of hippy-dippy liberal/lefty/New-Age-y cause, but she too would say these very politically incorrect things on race. After returning from a day-long outing to Chinatown, though she loved her 'diversity', she announced it was wonderful to be back among her own kind. She also informed me that she would no longer hire Asians because she had had an Asian immigrant employee who quit without notice.
In my recent post 'Silence gives consent' I discussed how it seems that many people do not really, deep-down, believe in this multicultural, anti-White order that we have. They may give lip service to it, but the multicult propagandists don't seem to have succeeded in completely overwriting all of the innate natural preferences people have, regarding race and ethnicity, or in erasing the traces of the old cultural order, which allowed people to take note of the obvious differences among groups of people -- and to act accordingly. There are still some vestiges of these things even among liberals; whether you believe it is innate or learned, it's still there.
I suppose the FReepers and the rest of the colorblind conservative crowd would seize on the above anecdotes as more proof that 'liberals are the real racists' and 'Democrats are the haters, not Republicans.' No, I don't believe it's that simple, and moreover I think it's high time Republicans stopped trying to outdo the Democrats at currying favor with minorities and proving their lack of 'racism.'
Do these 'racist' liberals realize that their words don't fit their professed beliefs, and that it is bizarre to vote for a party or an ideology that would actually condemn them for even having taboo thoughts about race? Or is it understood somehow that if you vote the correct way, you get a free pass on certain politically incorrect statements because you are not a Republican or 'conservative'? Maybe that's the deal; in much the same way, blacks can freely use the 'n-word' while Whites are raked over the coals for even saying anything that remotely sounds like the n-word -- remember the furore over the word 'niggardly'? And we've all seen examples of lefty celebrities getting a pass on saying taboo things, while a Mel Gibson or a Dr. Laura are pilloried and all but run out of town.
I am left with just one plausible explanation as to why certain White people who seem to be somewhat racially aware still side with non-Whites politically, and support a political agenda that is anti-White to the core. The only explanation that might begin to make some sense of it is that the right, whether the Republican Party or conservatives in general or White Christians are portrayed as being so odious and so reprehensible that the only 'decent' thing to do is to vote Democrat. Somebody has done a very good job of villainizing the right, and the traditional order of things in this country.
There are people who voted for the current order of things who are not the brainwashed 'mad-dog liberals', as Cambria Will Not Yield calls them. They are not the true-believer ideologues or the nihilists that make up many of the so-called 'anti-fascist' young radicals. They are just people, often passive or uninformed, who have been persuaded that White 'conservatives' are a bigger danger to this country than any other group of people.
And though the statement I'm about to make may step on some toes, the fact is, the right can at times be its own worst enemy. When I was a liberal I believed, as liberals/leftists universally believe, that the right, including the not-that-conservative Republicans, are the champions of big corporations, big business, globalism, fat cats, and so on. There is something to this; all too often, the Republican Party is dominated by the Country Club 'respectables' who care only about their financial interests and the good opinion of their peers. There is too little regard for the salt-of-the-earth people of this country among many 'conservatives.' Therefore some rather well-intentioned but not very perceptive people have deluded themselves into thinking that the Democrat Party is for ''The People'' or ''the working man.'' Such of course is not the case; they, too, are the party of the elites and the 'fat cats' and the globalist predators, but they have managed to fool many people into buying the notion of their compassion.
I can only think that many people are still Democrats only because they have come to be convinced that the Democrats truly are the lesser of the evils. Whatever negative views they hold about the favored victim groups, their negative opinions of the Republicans are stronger.
Labels: Liberal Hypocrisy, Partisanship, Political Correctness, Racial Realism
0 comment Saturday, May 17, 2014 | admin
It's becoming more and more open and brazen.
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare. Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power. Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free.
[...]
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008). Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time. Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).''
This bill is not getting the attention it deserves. Many of the op-eds that are appearing are more focused on the costs of this monstrosity, not the alarming ideas about the (non)-value of human life that are becoming more and more explicit as we find out more about this thing.This should concern all of us; it does not matter if you are young, or relatively young. Even the young and fit might at any time be in a disabling accident or be diagnosed with a serious illness which these leftist social engineers deem too 'costly', especially if treatment will only sustain the life of someone who would no longer be 'productive' or of any use to the State.
So this is not just something that will affect older people, who are unfortunately regarded as useless by many people in this callous age. It might affect people of any age, and even if it does not affect you personally now, it will at some point.
It's ironic in the extreme that the very people (leftists and pseudo-compassionate liberals) who pose as ''caring'' people, and who constantly call those to the right of them ''Nazis'', are willing to support a plan like this, with its totalitarian priorities.
Back during Ronald Reagan's terms of office, the news media constantly featured stories about Republican cold-heartedness. Those of you who remember that era will remember the stories about how the evil Republican budget cuts meant that children were given ketchup in their school lunches in place of a vegetable. Then there were the cries that poor elderly people were going to be out on the street under the budget cuts, and that many old folks were forced to eat cat food because they could not afford real food under the harsh Republican administration.
Obviously that was all hyperbole, but now these same tender-hearted people are nonchalantly proposing that we write off many old and disabled people because it is too costly and 'unfair' to keep them alive.
I plan to send this article to some of the liberals I know; I would bet that many of them, being rather ill-informed except for what they hear on NPR, are not aware of the provisions in this health care bill. This needs to be discussed.
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare. Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power. Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free.
[...]
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008). Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time. Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).''
This bill is not getting the attention it deserves. Many of the op-eds that are appearing are more focused on the costs of this monstrosity, not the alarming ideas about the (non)-value of human life that are becoming more and more explicit as we find out more about this thing.This should concern all of us; it does not matter if you are young, or relatively young. Even the young and fit might at any time be in a disabling accident or be diagnosed with a serious illness which these leftist social engineers deem too 'costly', especially if treatment will only sustain the life of someone who would no longer be 'productive' or of any use to the State.
So this is not just something that will affect older people, who are unfortunately regarded as useless by many people in this callous age. It might affect people of any age, and even if it does not affect you personally now, it will at some point.
It's ironic in the extreme that the very people (leftists and pseudo-compassionate liberals) who pose as ''caring'' people, and who constantly call those to the right of them ''Nazis'', are willing to support a plan like this, with its totalitarian priorities.
Back during Ronald Reagan's terms of office, the news media constantly featured stories about Republican cold-heartedness. Those of you who remember that era will remember the stories about how the evil Republican budget cuts meant that children were given ketchup in their school lunches in place of a vegetable. Then there were the cries that poor elderly people were going to be out on the street under the budget cuts, and that many old folks were forced to eat cat food because they could not afford real food under the harsh Republican administration.
Obviously that was all hyperbole, but now these same tender-hearted people are nonchalantly proposing that we write off many old and disabled people because it is too costly and 'unfair' to keep them alive.
I plan to send this article to some of the liberals I know; I would bet that many of them, being rather ill-informed except for what they hear on NPR, are not aware of the provisions in this health care bill. This needs to be discussed.
Labels: Big Government, Democrats, Euthanasia, Health Care, Liberal Hypocrisy, Liberalism, Medical Care, Medical Ethics, Nanny State, Public Health, Totalitarianism
0 comment Thursday, May 8, 2014 | admin
Over at Iron Ink, there are several good entries on the health care proposal, in particular this one, Nietzsche's Little Shop of Horrors.
Here is the problem folks.
America is broke and it needs to find ways to cut budgetary corners.
The answer, in part to that, is to allow Senior Citizens, the infirm, and the handicapped to die as opposed to giving them treatment. The solution is right out of Nietzsche�s playbook. The Christian values of gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy are going to be thrown out in order that a Nietzschean ubermensch (Supermen) can survive. Obama is invoking the "will to power," in his plan to make Senior Citizens, the infirm, and the handicapped be the ones who help America out of its bankrupt condition.''
I agree with that assessment of the problem.
But the paradox is that the Left, the ones who are hell-bent on having this plan become law, position themselves as the champions of the weak, the downtrodden, and the politically 'disenfranchised.' But here they are taking a blatantly Nietzschean perspective. Can they continue to do this and still maintain any credibility as the party of 'caring and compassion'?
And how can the same people who arrogantly pronounce that we have to throw the 'non-contributing' individuals overboard in order to achieve health-care justice at the same time continue flooding our country with costly newcomers, many of them with exotic Third-world diseases and generally neglected health? The fact of many bankrupt hospitals in border states is but one illustration of how devastating to our health care system is the influx of illegal (and legal) immigrants.
Yet the powers that be, and their media flunkeys, (including the Wall Street Journal) continue to studiously ignore and deny the costs of mass immigration and the health problems which the newcomers bring with them.
But here, even the open-borders WSJ acknowledges the problem:
VALLEJO, Calif. -- A health clinic in this blue-collar city north of Oakland, partly funded by the county, is saving local hospitals thousands of dollars in emergency-room visits by treating uninsured patients who suffer only non-urgent ailments.
A watchdog group is now calling on county officials to cut funding for clinic patients who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally, a debate certain to surface in the national health-care overhaul.
With congressional proposals already stirring raw emotions, few supporters are eager to add the incendiary issue of illegal immigration. A provision in the House's health-care-overhaul bill rules out federal funding for illegal immigrants.
But in many ways, illegal immigration is at the nexus of two key health issues: the uninsured and ballooning costs.
Roughly half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. don't have health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. Like others who can't afford medical care, illegal immigrants tend to flock to hospital emergency rooms, which, under a 1986 law, can't turn people away, even if they can't pay. Emergency-room visits, where treatment costs are much higher than in clinics, jumped 32% nationally between 1996 and 2006, the latest data available.
The role illegal immigrants play in U.S. health-care costs is "one hot button that no one wants to touch," says Stephen Zuckerman, an economist at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.''
Well, Mr. Zuckerman, why do you suppose it is a 'hot button that no one wants to touch'? Obviously, it's because as I said yesterday, race is involved. If we had tens of millions of White Canadians thronging across our Northern border to 'seek a better life', nobody would be afraid to complain about it. Of course our Canadian cousins are generally too well-behaved and self-sufficient to violate our borders en masse, and they have created themselves a livable country, so the notion of their becoming border-jumpers should strike us as laughable. But alas, our borders are being violated by people of a protected race, so we must not notice the crisis their trespassing is causing, lest we be 'racists.' So no, Mr. Zuckerman, nobody wants to touch that hot button, which has been made a hot button on purpose, to keep us quiet about what is happening. But back to the article:
Residents have since complained to a 19-member county-appointed watchdog group about taxpayer money La Clínica going to health care for people living in the U.S. illegally. Neither the clinic nor the Sutter emergency room ask people their immigration status.
"All we can ask them is their name, date of birth and chief complaint," says Ms. Hammons, the Sutter emergency-department manager. "Heavens, we don't deny anybody treatment. You are required to see anyone who shows up at the emergency department.''
Yes; I think this is official policy in many places. They can't be asked for proof of citizenship, so a blind eye is turned, in 'don't ask, don't tell' fashion. I often tell people this is happening, and they are incredulous, because many people naively assume that ''it's against the law for illegals to get services'', not only medical care, but welfare and other social programs. But then I have to remind the doubters that ''it's against the law to cross the borders without proper permission, too" -- but that hasn't stopped millions from doing so, has it?
VDare has more on health care for immigrants:
A Colorado Ph.D says Mexicans with AIDS drain California of millions every year
and this piece by Brenda Walker about organ transplants for illegals.
There is no question that foreigners illegally enter the country to get million-dollar transplants not available at home, e.g. Ana Puente and Jessica Santillan, who received at least seven organs between them. The Chicago Tribune recently reported, "Liliana Cruz, 16, and her family came to the U.S. illegally in 2005, trying to get a kidney transplant for her." She hasn�t gotten a transplant and complains about receiving free-to-her dialysis provided by taxpayers. So inconvenient.''
Many of these immigrants come here to get extremely costly treatment which they could not get in their home countries. Some Americans are reluctant to object to this, thinking it un-Christian or uncharitable -- but we have to remember there are many of our own people on waiting lists for transplants or dialysis. Should we not put our own first, as most countries do? None of us, not even "rich" old Uncle Sam (who is actually a pauper now) can care for everybody. We have to prioritize.
But as I asked on the Iron Ink piece, will these HIV-positive immigrants and others with costly medical conditions be turned away or denied care under the proposed system? I can hardly imagine that happening, because these people are the protected victims, the 'special' ones who are prioritized under the left's system. They will not be denied treatment.
The idea inherent in this plan is that health care should be guided by the left's notion of 'social justice', and doled out to those deemed ''underserved'' or underprivileged, while those who have ''had their day'' will be expected to step aside in favor of the younger people, most particularly those of the protected 'victim' groups.
[Emanuel] explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).''
If costs are indeed the deciding factor, and old or chronically ill people are just a burden on the rest, how can the government still open our borders and our treasury to millions more immigrants, who have proven to be very costly to the system?
The leftists, of course, are not troubled by glaring contradictions and inconsistencies. Everything is ultimately ideological and political to them, including human life.
And young people, who think this is strictly about those old folks for whom you have little sympathy, remember that you, too, could become disabled via accident or chronic illness. And your life, too, will be considered too costly to sustain -- unless, of course, you are a member of a politically favored group.
This is an issue that should concern everyone, regardless of age.
Here is the problem folks.
America is broke and it needs to find ways to cut budgetary corners.
The answer, in part to that, is to allow Senior Citizens, the infirm, and the handicapped to die as opposed to giving them treatment. The solution is right out of Nietzsche�s playbook. The Christian values of gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy are going to be thrown out in order that a Nietzschean ubermensch (Supermen) can survive. Obama is invoking the "will to power," in his plan to make Senior Citizens, the infirm, and the handicapped be the ones who help America out of its bankrupt condition.''
I agree with that assessment of the problem.
But the paradox is that the Left, the ones who are hell-bent on having this plan become law, position themselves as the champions of the weak, the downtrodden, and the politically 'disenfranchised.' But here they are taking a blatantly Nietzschean perspective. Can they continue to do this and still maintain any credibility as the party of 'caring and compassion'?
And how can the same people who arrogantly pronounce that we have to throw the 'non-contributing' individuals overboard in order to achieve health-care justice at the same time continue flooding our country with costly newcomers, many of them with exotic Third-world diseases and generally neglected health? The fact of many bankrupt hospitals in border states is but one illustration of how devastating to our health care system is the influx of illegal (and legal) immigrants.
Yet the powers that be, and their media flunkeys, (including the Wall Street Journal) continue to studiously ignore and deny the costs of mass immigration and the health problems which the newcomers bring with them.
But here, even the open-borders WSJ acknowledges the problem:
VALLEJO, Calif. -- A health clinic in this blue-collar city north of Oakland, partly funded by the county, is saving local hospitals thousands of dollars in emergency-room visits by treating uninsured patients who suffer only non-urgent ailments.
A watchdog group is now calling on county officials to cut funding for clinic patients who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally, a debate certain to surface in the national health-care overhaul.
With congressional proposals already stirring raw emotions, few supporters are eager to add the incendiary issue of illegal immigration. A provision in the House's health-care-overhaul bill rules out federal funding for illegal immigrants.
But in many ways, illegal immigration is at the nexus of two key health issues: the uninsured and ballooning costs.
Roughly half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. don't have health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. Like others who can't afford medical care, illegal immigrants tend to flock to hospital emergency rooms, which, under a 1986 law, can't turn people away, even if they can't pay. Emergency-room visits, where treatment costs are much higher than in clinics, jumped 32% nationally between 1996 and 2006, the latest data available.
The role illegal immigrants play in U.S. health-care costs is "one hot button that no one wants to touch," says Stephen Zuckerman, an economist at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.''
Well, Mr. Zuckerman, why do you suppose it is a 'hot button that no one wants to touch'? Obviously, it's because as I said yesterday, race is involved. If we had tens of millions of White Canadians thronging across our Northern border to 'seek a better life', nobody would be afraid to complain about it. Of course our Canadian cousins are generally too well-behaved and self-sufficient to violate our borders en masse, and they have created themselves a livable country, so the notion of their becoming border-jumpers should strike us as laughable. But alas, our borders are being violated by people of a protected race, so we must not notice the crisis their trespassing is causing, lest we be 'racists.' So no, Mr. Zuckerman, nobody wants to touch that hot button, which has been made a hot button on purpose, to keep us quiet about what is happening. But back to the article:
Residents have since complained to a 19-member county-appointed watchdog group about taxpayer money La Clínica going to health care for people living in the U.S. illegally. Neither the clinic nor the Sutter emergency room ask people their immigration status.
"All we can ask them is their name, date of birth and chief complaint," says Ms. Hammons, the Sutter emergency-department manager. "Heavens, we don't deny anybody treatment. You are required to see anyone who shows up at the emergency department.''
Yes; I think this is official policy in many places. They can't be asked for proof of citizenship, so a blind eye is turned, in 'don't ask, don't tell' fashion. I often tell people this is happening, and they are incredulous, because many people naively assume that ''it's against the law for illegals to get services'', not only medical care, but welfare and other social programs. But then I have to remind the doubters that ''it's against the law to cross the borders without proper permission, too" -- but that hasn't stopped millions from doing so, has it?
VDare has more on health care for immigrants:
A Colorado Ph.D says Mexicans with AIDS drain California of millions every year
and this piece by Brenda Walker about organ transplants for illegals.
There is no question that foreigners illegally enter the country to get million-dollar transplants not available at home, e.g. Ana Puente and Jessica Santillan, who received at least seven organs between them. The Chicago Tribune recently reported, "Liliana Cruz, 16, and her family came to the U.S. illegally in 2005, trying to get a kidney transplant for her." She hasn�t gotten a transplant and complains about receiving free-to-her dialysis provided by taxpayers. So inconvenient.''
Many of these immigrants come here to get extremely costly treatment which they could not get in their home countries. Some Americans are reluctant to object to this, thinking it un-Christian or uncharitable -- but we have to remember there are many of our own people on waiting lists for transplants or dialysis. Should we not put our own first, as most countries do? None of us, not even "rich" old Uncle Sam (who is actually a pauper now) can care for everybody. We have to prioritize.
But as I asked on the Iron Ink piece, will these HIV-positive immigrants and others with costly medical conditions be turned away or denied care under the proposed system? I can hardly imagine that happening, because these people are the protected victims, the 'special' ones who are prioritized under the left's system. They will not be denied treatment.
The idea inherent in this plan is that health care should be guided by the left's notion of 'social justice', and doled out to those deemed ''underserved'' or underprivileged, while those who have ''had their day'' will be expected to step aside in favor of the younger people, most particularly those of the protected 'victim' groups.
[Emanuel] explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).''
If costs are indeed the deciding factor, and old or chronically ill people are just a burden on the rest, how can the government still open our borders and our treasury to millions more immigrants, who have proven to be very costly to the system?
The leftists, of course, are not troubled by glaring contradictions and inconsistencies. Everything is ultimately ideological and political to them, including human life.
And young people, who think this is strictly about those old folks for whom you have little sympathy, remember that you, too, could become disabled via accident or chronic illness. And your life, too, will be considered too costly to sustain -- unless, of course, you are a member of a politically favored group.
This is an issue that should concern everyone, regardless of age.
Labels: Health Care, Liberal Hypocrisy, Medical Ethics, Public Health, Socialism, Socialized Medicine