0 comment Sunday, August 31, 2014 | admin
So much of the 'news' lately reported in the old media, and even in the blogosphere, seems to be so much distraction from some of the rather unsettling things that are happening quietly, unbeknownst to most Americans.
I've alluded to this 'national service' plan which has been in the works, but few details have been publicly discussed, so there was not much to say about it except that I find it to be wrong in principle. However the Senate has just passed the bill which is called the GIVE Act.
The senate voted 74-14 in favor of the bill.
HR 1388
GIVE Act
Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act
The link above gives only a summary of the bill, and not the complete text, but I invite my readers to take a look at it.
The House version of the bill passed a few days ago, as WorldNetDaily reported, and with no less than 70 Republicans voting for it.
The House version is here.
Here is one part (among many) which is rather unnerving:
SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows:
SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
...(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.''
There's also a related bill here.
Somehow in light of what these measures suggest, I can't help thinking of what a certain person said some months ago:
"Barack Obama will require you to work."
"He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation and that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage."
"Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual � uninvolved, uninformed � you have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eight years from now, you will have to be engaged."
These plans seems disturbingly open-ended, and though it looks as if the idea is primarily to indoctrinate young people (or further indoctrinate them, more accurately), the bills even mention programs for seniors over the age of 55. If we consider the quotes in the paragraph above, it sounds as though this 'service corps' will not just be another little VISTA program or something which provides busy work for idealistic young people, but something that sounds unsettlingly compulsory as opposed to voluntary, and it looks like it is meant to touch everybody, not just a 'commiitted' few.
Any reactions? Comments?
I've alluded to this 'national service' plan which has been in the works, but few details have been publicly discussed, so there was not much to say about it except that I find it to be wrong in principle. However the Senate has just passed the bill which is called the GIVE Act.
The senate voted 74-14 in favor of the bill.
HR 1388
GIVE Act
Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act
The link above gives only a summary of the bill, and not the complete text, but I invite my readers to take a look at it.
The House version of the bill passed a few days ago, as WorldNetDaily reported, and with no less than 70 Republicans voting for it.
The House version is here.
Here is one part (among many) which is rather unnerving:
SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows:
SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
...(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.''
There's also a related bill here.
Somehow in light of what these measures suggest, I can't help thinking of what a certain person said some months ago:
"Barack Obama will require you to work."
"He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation and that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage."
"Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual � uninvolved, uninformed � you have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eight years from now, you will have to be engaged."
These plans seems disturbingly open-ended, and though it looks as if the idea is primarily to indoctrinate young people (or further indoctrinate them, more accurately), the bills even mention programs for seniors over the age of 55. If we consider the quotes in the paragraph above, it sounds as though this 'service corps' will not just be another little VISTA program or something which provides busy work for idealistic young people, but something that sounds unsettlingly compulsory as opposed to voluntary, and it looks like it is meant to touch everybody, not just a 'commiitted' few.
Any reactions? Comments?
Labels: Communism, Congress, Indoctrination, Mass Media, National Service, Socialism, Volunteerism
0 comment Tuesday, August 12, 2014 | admin
It might have been worth watching this fake townhall event if only to see this foot-in-mouth moment -- or was it a Freudian slip? See the video.
However, I missed it -- well, OK, I avoided watching it. I figured it would be staged and scripted and the attendees would all be plants and cult followers.
Yet Obama encountered a friendly, cheering crowd, as if at a campaign stop. While there were crowds of protesters outside, few seemed to make it inside.
He spoke for almost 20 minutes before questions. After several friendly questions, he urged people with tougher ones to step up.
"I don't want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants" in the audience, Obama said. After two more mildly skeptical questions, Obama ended the town hall. He took nine questions in total.
A little girl who asked him a rather precocious-sounding question, may have been a plant, reportedly.
According to the IBD article, the Resident implicitly reiterated the new talking point: that those with concerns about euthanasia or 'death panels' are crazy.
Obama ridiculed the notion that this plan would create "death panels" to decide end-of-life care.
He said the bill provides for panels of experts "who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations. . . . These aren't going to be forced on people but they will help guide how the delivery system works so you get better quality care."
My opinion of New Hampshire went down a little after seeing some clips of the audience there; is this the 'Live Free or Die' State?
And is this president the one with the off-the-chart IQ? Why is it that Democrat presidents are always said to be geniuses? Bill Clinton was another mediocrity who was touted as a high-IQ prodigy. Where's the evidence?
I notice that with the president's faux pas or whatever you would call it, the IBD op-ed reports it with a straight face, either missing the irony or intentionally spinning his statement as an 'I meant to say that' moment.
I was talking to a nurse friend yesterday and she is very much opposed to this proposal (which the Democrats say does not exist: ''There is no health bill!" they insist), though the Democrat talking points say that the AMA and the American Nurses' Association are on board with this. My nurse friend says that many of the people she is hearing from are very upset about the prospect of government-run health care. I don't hear much favorable comment about it myself -- in fact, I've heard none, in real life. Only the shills on TV speak in favor of it.
I've read some internet comment from right-wing bloggers criticizing the townhall protesters, on the grounds that it makes us look bad, or that it amounts to using the left's rabble-rousing tactics and crudeness. I don't think there is any kind of 'astroturfing' on a wide scale going on. I don't know any sheeplike Republicans who would attend a protest and shout at their representatives just because the RNC or anyone else told them to. I believe the anger is genuine and spontaneous; it certainly is on my part.
And by the way, the RNC periodically begs me for donations, but they have not contacted me in any way to try to get me to protest or to demonstrate.
Somebody on a blog discussion said that it was ridiculous for people on the far-right to get worked up about health care when we have our dispossession to worry about. I don't see how that person could fail to notice that this thing is a not-so-veiled attack on us, a way to reduce our numbers even further and more quickly. This is a survival issue, and as such it's not trivial or irrelevant, not in the least.
However, I missed it -- well, OK, I avoided watching it. I figured it would be staged and scripted and the attendees would all be plants and cult followers.
Yet Obama encountered a friendly, cheering crowd, as if at a campaign stop. While there were crowds of protesters outside, few seemed to make it inside.
He spoke for almost 20 minutes before questions. After several friendly questions, he urged people with tougher ones to step up.
"I don't want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants" in the audience, Obama said. After two more mildly skeptical questions, Obama ended the town hall. He took nine questions in total.
A little girl who asked him a rather precocious-sounding question, may have been a plant, reportedly.
According to the IBD article, the Resident implicitly reiterated the new talking point: that those with concerns about euthanasia or 'death panels' are crazy.
Obama ridiculed the notion that this plan would create "death panels" to decide end-of-life care.
He said the bill provides for panels of experts "who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations. . . . These aren't going to be forced on people but they will help guide how the delivery system works so you get better quality care."
My opinion of New Hampshire went down a little after seeing some clips of the audience there; is this the 'Live Free or Die' State?
And is this president the one with the off-the-chart IQ? Why is it that Democrat presidents are always said to be geniuses? Bill Clinton was another mediocrity who was touted as a high-IQ prodigy. Where's the evidence?
I notice that with the president's faux pas or whatever you would call it, the IBD op-ed reports it with a straight face, either missing the irony or intentionally spinning his statement as an 'I meant to say that' moment.
I was talking to a nurse friend yesterday and she is very much opposed to this proposal (which the Democrats say does not exist: ''There is no health bill!" they insist), though the Democrat talking points say that the AMA and the American Nurses' Association are on board with this. My nurse friend says that many of the people she is hearing from are very upset about the prospect of government-run health care. I don't hear much favorable comment about it myself -- in fact, I've heard none, in real life. Only the shills on TV speak in favor of it.
I've read some internet comment from right-wing bloggers criticizing the townhall protesters, on the grounds that it makes us look bad, or that it amounts to using the left's rabble-rousing tactics and crudeness. I don't think there is any kind of 'astroturfing' on a wide scale going on. I don't know any sheeplike Republicans who would attend a protest and shout at their representatives just because the RNC or anyone else told them to. I believe the anger is genuine and spontaneous; it certainly is on my part.
And by the way, the RNC periodically begs me for donations, but they have not contacted me in any way to try to get me to protest or to demonstrate.
Somebody on a blog discussion said that it was ridiculous for people on the far-right to get worked up about health care when we have our dispossession to worry about. I don't see how that person could fail to notice that this thing is a not-so-veiled attack on us, a way to reduce our numbers even further and more quickly. This is a survival issue, and as such it's not trivial or irrelevant, not in the least.
Labels: Health Care, Media Manipulation, Public Health, Socialism, Socialized Medicine
0 comment Sunday, June 29, 2014 | admin
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it dizzying to keep up with the changes that are underway in this country, as seen in each day's news. And I think that the people in power now are rather giddy from the ease with which they are able to work these drastic changes. I think they are positively shocked at how easy it has been to work their will.
Look back on the last few months and ponder how quickly the promised 'change' has come, and none of this change, as far as I can see, promises good things.
James Lewis says, of the new administration, in the above-linked article from American Thinker:
These are not just rank amateurs, they are willfully ignorant amateurs, who also happen to be grandiose narcissists, and who now have free reign over the levers of power in the United States. We are all watching the Titanic steaming full speed ahead right before that diamond-hard iceberg tears off all the steel rivets from her skin. If you're not aghast, you're just not paying attention.''
And yes, I am aghast, and most of all, aghast at the recognition that many Americans are not equally aghast. That's one of the most troubling parts of the whole situation.
Still, there are some sane people still in possession of the keenness of judgment to recognize what is going on. Karen De Coster is one such person.
The speed with which the federal government intends to take over private institutions and usurp states� rights and individual autonomy is unprecedented. When the Bush-Obama regime maneuvers are compared to the Hoover-FDR New Deal era, it looks like today�s hare vs. yesterday�s turtle. The state�s various propaganda arms, from big media to institutionalized special interest forces, are being empowered to publicize and sell the agenda of the totalitarian state by painting it in glossy colors that warm the hearts of unresisting Americans. There are, however, growing pockets of dissenters who conclude that life, liberty, property, and the futures of their children are more important than the trivial things that occupy the minds of the submissive class. For that reason, the state�s militarized police force, which has been given unparalleled powers by the contrived crises following 9-11, has snowballed in size and is being fortified in expectation of confronting rebellion from those citizens who intend to resist the tyranny of an over-reaching Leviathan.''
She discusses a topic to which we keep returning lately: the state sovereignty movement, and the increasing talk of secession from various quarters. She notes that there has been, and remains, a knee-jerk resistance to the idea and a discomfort with it as being in the realm of extremism. There are, as she notes of the libertarian movement, people who scoff at talk of secession and ask for what they consider more 'practical' solutions, 'practical' meaning:
''....the code word for something that is acceptable to the majority of the Oprahized masses. This kind of thought is known as "libertarian lite," or as I call it, "car wash libertarianism." The car wash libertarians persuade others � "especially those new to libertarianism � to stay away from the radical, "crazy" stuff and hold true to the agenda of getting "our people" elected through legitimate political means. The car wash libertarians still have a voice in the modern LP, which is also known as GOP 2.0. These libertarians are in the game not for reasons of deep-rooted principles and love of liberty, but for the social, bonding aspects, with some mild libertarianism sprinkled on the side. They love attending their local meetings and dinners each month and discussing who is going to run for what local post, and when, and applying strategy.''
Yes, there are these people among 'conservatives' as well. And many of them obstinately refuse to recognize that we are running out of time for what they call 'practical', gradual options.
The rapid-fire socialization of America, I hope, will have the effect of turning many of these libertarians toward more radical plans of action.
''The Feds are engaged in a sweeping series of measures to take complete control of the financial system (which is forever destroyed) and selected business entities; ratchet up plans for perpetual war; socialize health care; further implant federalized education and criminalize homeschooling; grab guns and ammo; remove children from the homes of dissenters; commence race wars and class wars; force young adults into mandatory state service camps; send protesters to FEMA camps; and on and on and on.
At this point, none of this can be undone through time-consuming, political means. Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and the other agents of Obama's unfreedom brigade were brought to Washington D.C. for one very specific purpose: to centralize every last bit of property and life and put it all under federal rule, from money to education to personal behavior. Note the condescending and arrogant behavior of King Obama on the 60 Minutes television show as he laughed at the inability of majority opinion to do a damn thing to stop his freight train of power grabs and federal takeovers.
Perhaps the most significant move on the part of the Feds, outside of crushing the free market through rapid nationalization, is the move on the part of the centralizers to extinguish the single most important characteristic of a free society � the right to bear arms. A society in which individuals cannot bear arms is a society doomed to eternal serfdom and oppression from self-serving overlords.''
Read the rest at the link.
The last sentence in the second paragraph above, about 'sending protesters to FEMA camps', is an idea that has been rumored for some time now, and the more cautious consider it to be urban legend or tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. I am not sure what to believe on that, but there is little doubt about the accuracy of the rest of the agenda she delineates in the excerpt above; the measures mentioned are all well within the realm of fact and public record.
All of this should be enough to galvanize the 'practical' people into a realization that it is much later than we like to think, and that things are proceeding very rapidly. Maybe it's time to look for less 'practical' yet more effective solutions if we do not want to be dragged further into this new order of which we've heard so much. We may no longer have the luxury of being able to hope for 'throwing the rascals out in 2012' or even in 2010.
While we still have some freedom left, time to use it or lose it.
Look back on the last few months and ponder how quickly the promised 'change' has come, and none of this change, as far as I can see, promises good things.
James Lewis says, of the new administration, in the above-linked article from American Thinker:
These are not just rank amateurs, they are willfully ignorant amateurs, who also happen to be grandiose narcissists, and who now have free reign over the levers of power in the United States. We are all watching the Titanic steaming full speed ahead right before that diamond-hard iceberg tears off all the steel rivets from her skin. If you're not aghast, you're just not paying attention.''
And yes, I am aghast, and most of all, aghast at the recognition that many Americans are not equally aghast. That's one of the most troubling parts of the whole situation.
Still, there are some sane people still in possession of the keenness of judgment to recognize what is going on. Karen De Coster is one such person.
The speed with which the federal government intends to take over private institutions and usurp states� rights and individual autonomy is unprecedented. When the Bush-Obama regime maneuvers are compared to the Hoover-FDR New Deal era, it looks like today�s hare vs. yesterday�s turtle. The state�s various propaganda arms, from big media to institutionalized special interest forces, are being empowered to publicize and sell the agenda of the totalitarian state by painting it in glossy colors that warm the hearts of unresisting Americans. There are, however, growing pockets of dissenters who conclude that life, liberty, property, and the futures of their children are more important than the trivial things that occupy the minds of the submissive class. For that reason, the state�s militarized police force, which has been given unparalleled powers by the contrived crises following 9-11, has snowballed in size and is being fortified in expectation of confronting rebellion from those citizens who intend to resist the tyranny of an over-reaching Leviathan.''
She discusses a topic to which we keep returning lately: the state sovereignty movement, and the increasing talk of secession from various quarters. She notes that there has been, and remains, a knee-jerk resistance to the idea and a discomfort with it as being in the realm of extremism. There are, as she notes of the libertarian movement, people who scoff at talk of secession and ask for what they consider more 'practical' solutions, 'practical' meaning:
''....the code word for something that is acceptable to the majority of the Oprahized masses. This kind of thought is known as "libertarian lite," or as I call it, "car wash libertarianism." The car wash libertarians persuade others � "especially those new to libertarianism � to stay away from the radical, "crazy" stuff and hold true to the agenda of getting "our people" elected through legitimate political means. The car wash libertarians still have a voice in the modern LP, which is also known as GOP 2.0. These libertarians are in the game not for reasons of deep-rooted principles and love of liberty, but for the social, bonding aspects, with some mild libertarianism sprinkled on the side. They love attending their local meetings and dinners each month and discussing who is going to run for what local post, and when, and applying strategy.''
Yes, there are these people among 'conservatives' as well. And many of them obstinately refuse to recognize that we are running out of time for what they call 'practical', gradual options.
The rapid-fire socialization of America, I hope, will have the effect of turning many of these libertarians toward more radical plans of action.
''The Feds are engaged in a sweeping series of measures to take complete control of the financial system (which is forever destroyed) and selected business entities; ratchet up plans for perpetual war; socialize health care; further implant federalized education and criminalize homeschooling; grab guns and ammo; remove children from the homes of dissenters; commence race wars and class wars; force young adults into mandatory state service camps; send protesters to FEMA camps; and on and on and on.
At this point, none of this can be undone through time-consuming, political means. Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and the other agents of Obama's unfreedom brigade were brought to Washington D.C. for one very specific purpose: to centralize every last bit of property and life and put it all under federal rule, from money to education to personal behavior. Note the condescending and arrogant behavior of King Obama on the 60 Minutes television show as he laughed at the inability of majority opinion to do a damn thing to stop his freight train of power grabs and federal takeovers.
Perhaps the most significant move on the part of the Feds, outside of crushing the free market through rapid nationalization, is the move on the part of the centralizers to extinguish the single most important characteristic of a free society � the right to bear arms. A society in which individuals cannot bear arms is a society doomed to eternal serfdom and oppression from self-serving overlords.''
Read the rest at the link.
The last sentence in the second paragraph above, about 'sending protesters to FEMA camps', is an idea that has been rumored for some time now, and the more cautious consider it to be urban legend or tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. I am not sure what to believe on that, but there is little doubt about the accuracy of the rest of the agenda she delineates in the excerpt above; the measures mentioned are all well within the realm of fact and public record.
All of this should be enough to galvanize the 'practical' people into a realization that it is much later than we like to think, and that things are proceeding very rapidly. Maybe it's time to look for less 'practical' yet more effective solutions if we do not want to be dragged further into this new order of which we've heard so much. We may no longer have the luxury of being able to hope for 'throwing the rascals out in 2012' or even in 2010.
While we still have some freedom left, time to use it or lose it.
Labels: Jeffersonian Principles, Liberty, Secession, Socialism, Sovereignty Movement, State Sovereignty, Tenth Amendment
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