Tim Kowal

Tim Kowal is a husband, father, and attorney in Orange County, California, Vice President of the Orange County Federalist Society, commissioner on the OC Human Relations Commission, and Treasurer of Huntington Beach Tomorrow. The views expressed on this blog are his own. You can follow this blog via RSS, Facebook, or Twitter. Email is welcome at timkowal at gmail.com.

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  1. This is a sad day for America. Citizens have voted against America. These voters are so clueless and that ticks me off so bad. Four more years with an anti-American Commie in the White House.

    • Now you know how Kerry voters felt in 2004…stunned to see that such glaring incompetence could triumph. Which really tells us much about what the opposition in each election was able to offer in terms of a difference. You’d think a dead guy with half an idea could have beat either incumbent in both 2004 and 2012.

      • 1) Never get in a land war in Asia
        2) Never get in a battle of wits with a Sicilian
        3) Never nominate a Massachusetts politician with a Presidential Election on the line.

        • Noted. Will start collecting binders of more Texan candidates who pledge to start wars and sign massive new entitlements.

          • If only Perry could have remembered the departments he wanted to shut down. The course of history forever changed by a single brain fart.

          • RR couldn’t have won ’12, Tim. It is what it is. We’re Greece now, the war of all against all.

          • I knew you couldn’t keep up the grace-in-defeat stuff. Must have been a real strain last night. Welcome back.

          • Just for the record, Tim. My comment at 4:10 p.m. (which is kind of weird – it’s 11:10 a.m. where I am) is addressed to TVD’s 5:53 a.m. comment. It was not addressed to you at all. I wanted to make that clear.

          • “War of all against all”? Wow, back when I said that was the inevitable result of political power introduced to cultural differences you rejected the whole premise.

          • “RR couldn’t have won ’12, Tim”

            Yeah, but that’s just because he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the primary. He’d have won the general.

          • Speaking as a Texan — he’d have lost worse than Romney. Texas Republicans have been trying to replace him for years, but he’s got a solid poltiical and patronage machine under him. Which is quite impressive, given the sharply limited powers of the Texas Governor.

            He certainly couldn’t have pulled off a sudden moderation as well as Mitt.

            2014 and 2016 are gonna be awesome, however, as the “not conservative enough” meme machine gets back running.

          • Perry could probably have won the primary, but could he really have gotten through the entire election without having a kooky Yosemite Sam moment?

          • Probably not. I think that Santorum would have been a good spokesman and advocate for conservatism. What do you think?

          • Better than Romney! Santorum’s from my neck of the woods (my district, in fact). He’s only a grade C politician. But Romney’s a grade F for “didn’t even think to try”.

          • I think Santorum wasn’t an effective spokesperson and advocate for conservatism in Pennsylvania (why he lost his seat) or in the primaries (why he lost the nomination). Since he wasn’t a good spokesman even in his home state or his own party, what on earth could possibly make you think he’d be a good spokesman to the whole country?

            You really need to stop equating what you personally like with what will be politically effective among a broader electorate. It’s just wishful thinking.

          • Santorum was outspent by Romney. That is the only reason he lost in the primary. 2006 was a bad year for the GOP so your equating an extremely bad year with a claim that Santorum isn’t an effective speaker because of this is absurd. You are clueless as to how much he connected with people, how impressive his candidacy really was especially with him running on a shoestring budget. That sound like some negative transference on your part.

          • the only reason? the fact that the country club establishment wouldn’t let him get within a year of being president means nothing to you?

          • Sorry to hear you need pain medicine. Hope it helps keep you comfortable. Also hope it’s just a temporary need, but if not, my sympathies are with you.

          • Thank you James. That is very kind of you. I had a hysterectomy at the end of September because of having endometriosis. After my pain had lessened for a week I thought that I could lose the dang pain pills for good but I guess not. Starting yesterday my pain increased. My doc did say that I would probably have flare ups til the endo was completely gone.

          • Here’s hoping it goes soon. My disagreements with you do not extend to wishing you pain and suffering.

          • Santorum was certainly more appealing on a personal level than, but he lost, in both Pennsylvania and the primaries, because his views represent only a narrow portion of the electorate, one most likely to vote in Republican primaries. Romney certainly outspent him, but his views were also much too far right to gain traction in blue-state suburbs. He was denouncing contraceptives, for goodness’ sake.

            I don’t see a 2016 presidential campaign in his future.

          • He was advocating based on his beliefs which he is called to subscribe by according to his faith. He never said he would ban them. He was only using the power of persuasion to spread his beliefs so I’m not sure whether that really means he is considered “far right”. I mean who sets what is considered “far right”? Is it the media? Secular society? People who disagree with his point of view? I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with the belief that the use of contraception is immoral but I just don’t like how a certain sect in our society gets to determine the labels for what constitutes “the center” and “far right” or whatever else.

          • maybe, just maybe, it’s math. you do a poll, you see what the median position is. three standard deviations away, and it’s “far” soemthing. Communism is pretty far out there. So are the Kochs.

          • Well, I know someone who worked for them.
            But anyone who thinks that simply because their greatgranddaddy owned Acadia, it ought to revert back to being their private property… That’s a little out there.

            Folks who think that veterans are the new welfare… that’s just a bit out there.

            I could go on. You don’t want me to.

          • As long as you brought it up, please define “un-American.”

          • You are clueless as to how much he connected with people,

            No, no, no. He really connected with your kind of people. Other people found him repulsive, smarmy, and, yes, too darn conservative.

            Quick lesson in spatial politics. Think of the American electorate as a being distributed along a bell curve. It’s not perfectly so, but it’s close enough. There’s a big lump in the middle. They’re not all independents. Lots of them are moderates who lean a bit liberal and lots of others are moderates who lean a bit right.

            The further you move to the left, the fewer voters there are. The further you move to the right, the fewer voters there are. If candidate X moves too far to the left (or right), candidate Y can step between them and the middle, and capture more voters.

            You are well out to the right, far from the median (middle) voter. That’s not a criticism. I may not like that position, but it’s a perfectly legitimate political position. Santorum is out there, too. He’s in your territory, and that’s why you like him. But see where all those other voters are? They’re not out there to the right. No matter how much Santorum appeals to you, he’s not appealing to those who are closer to the middle.

            Don’t feel bad, my friends who are Green Party supporters have the same problem, just from the other end.

          • Agreed.
            I had to break with my Occupy friends over this- they were convinced that America has a massive proletarian base, just aching to rise up in a populist Marxist revolt.

            They could never believe that a big chunk of the American workers loved Sarah Palin. They were convinced it was some MSM Jedi mind trick, that if only the scales could be pulled from their eyes, everyone would naturally see the wisdom of the leftist position.

            Even after 2010, the Tea PArty, and last nights victory, the trenches of the abortion wars haven’t moved much since 1973.

            America still supports abortion in the first trimester, and is willing to regulate it in the second, and severely restrict or even ban it in the third.

            People like low taxes and the private sector, but love government services like Social Security, Medicare, defense, and infrastructure.

          • Greece became Greece by voting in governments like this one time and again. And yes, I include “compassionate conservatism” in that. And unfortunately for the GOP, when presented with a fake Democrat vs. a real one, the voters will always choose the latter.

          • Since Santorum was/is a big supporter of manufacturing I think he’d have way more support than you suggest. Some people tend to focus on his social beliefs but there’s a lot more to him than that. He has great ideas for dealing with both the economy and foreign policy.

          • FTR, this moderate GOPer thinks Santorum would be far too divisive for the country even if he could squeak through a 51-49.

            Of course, I also feel that way about Barack Obama.

          • And there is the breakdown. Just because he resonated with you or with a circle of like-minded people does not mean that he would have had anything like that kind of success with the electorate as a whole.

          • I think Santorum is far too socially conservative for 75% of the electorate.

            I think – if the GOP wants to regain real solid support, nationally – the economic conservative message needs to take the helm and the social conservative message needs to move outside the legislative sphere.

            Look, the podunk middle-of-the-road voter doesn’t really care if you’re pro-life. They don’t really care if you run a halfway house for single mothers (except as a plus). They don’t really even care if you stand outside an abortion clinic with a “please give adoption a chance”. They care when you introduce right-to-life bills. They care when you make that one comment… and you’re going to continually get that one comment as long as you put up candidates that support right-to-life bills.

          • exactly. the socons and the racists are no longer a winning coalition. But, truly, everyone else hates them.

            Economic conservatism isn’t a losing strategy. Just be prepared to champion singlepayer, or at least SOMETHING to fix the walking debacle that is Medicare. And stop saying that SS is a ticking timebomb, it really isn’t.

          • If only Perry could have remembered the departments he wanted to shut down.

            Math, Stat, and Biology.

          • The immigration issue is what will make Rubio a great candidate. GOP really does need to take the lead on DREAM with Rubio leading the charge. Lambaste the President assuming Article 1 functions through Article 2 powers. I’ve said before that GOP blew it on health care by not leading the charge on it when they had the chance. They have to stop squandering those opportunities. They’re not wrong to obstruct Dems’ bad ideas on legislation, but they are wrong to keep leaving it to the Dems to take the lead on this stuff.

          • But get real with the “fiscal alternatives” stuff. See the comments to my post the other day: Dems don’t care about that stuff. See the OP here: No budget in the last four years and it wasn’t even a blip in this election. Math indeed.

          • Why don’t we have a budget?

            Is it not at least possible that one of the contributing reasons we don’t have a budget is that… if there is no budget… you can’t use budget sequestration rules to get past the filibuster?

          • “Dems don’t care about that stuff.”

            Not sure if that was Radley Balko’s intended point but that’s why he’s right. Romney had (a narrow) opening to be better than Obama on fiscal matters but his overall plan was incoherent and, after debate 1, inconsistent. (I mean, the Republicans did get Tim Kaine, for instance, to fall into the trap of agreeing with broadening the tax base. And then attacked him constantly for advocating raising taxes on ‘people making as little as 17 thousand a year)

            Anyway the debt and deficit won’t be a ‘short term’ problem anymore by 2016. (maybe not even by 2014 – & all the purple states up in two years in the Senate are currently Dem seats).

          • GOP blew it on health care by not leading the charge…

            I’m thinking that if they would have simply related Obamacare to the current auto insurance laws, they could have done better.
            If requiring full coverage for everyone makes sense, require the opposition to be consistent in their arguments.

        • ummmm yeah Tim…if only the R’s had some proven ideas on HC they could have pushed. If only Romney has ever done anything on HC. If only….

    • He’s been reelected on his ideas and now a poor record, so it can’t be said he’s unAmerican unless Americans are unAmerican. I do think he’s taken pretty big strides in softening us up to more and more illiberal ideas. We’re not communist yet but we’re clearing a path.

      • I’m going Galt or going on Food Stamps, whichever is easier. Our social contract just broke.

        “A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul.”—George Bernard Shaw

        I’m either going Peter or Paul depending on my finances and giving the finger to Paul or Peter, whichever. I have a family to take care of, and I’ll steal you or our government blind for them from here on in. I owe you nothing and you owe me everything. I just joined the majority.

        • If only that made any sense, you might have voted for the winner tonight

          • No diff. You don’t get it. I’m moving from pulling the cart to riding on it. Welcome me aboard.

          • go ahead…teach us all a lesson….i’m really worried about you going Galt or deciding to cruise through life on sweet sweet food stamps. Its noted you aren’t advocating for any of that robbing bob to pay bill stuff….just all sorts of tax cuts, which are a completely different animal of course.

          • I’ve been thinking on this for awhile, Greg. Seriously. Not just reacting. I was brought up to tap the gov’t as a last resort, not the first resort. You’re younger than me and I’m going to help make things worse and mebbe someday you’ll be forced to make them better. I’m just turning around the game because it’s no skin off my nose. It’s skin off yours.

            Enjoy your victory.

          • I’ll go enjoy my victory by finding people with per-exsisting conditions and telling them they’ll be able to keep their HC.

            I didn’t think you would see how massive tax cuts are robbing P to pay P.

          • TVD,
            funny, you won’t be taking your SS paychecks? or your medicare entitilements?
            Are those last resorts too?
            *smirk*

        • Well, Tom, I look forward to hearing you blog the experience of living on food stamps and I assume unemployment. And perhaps Mrs. Van Dyke’s income, if she’s not going galt too.

          I take it you have never experienced living on food stamps and/or unemployment? (You said “on” not “back on” so please let me know if I am incorrect). I think you will find the experience quite novel.

          I’ve seen a number of people write articles on attempting to live on minimum wage, on unemployment or food stamps — you know, the life on the government teat. Strangely, not one of them showed any interest in continuing it after the article was read — although that might be self-selection, since I obviously cannot read articles written by people who decided not to go back to their job after trying life on food stamps.

          I do know a few people personally, who have had experience living for a year or so on either unemployment or food stamps. I sincerely hope you live someplace with more generous a safety net than Texas. (Also, good luck with unemployment. Hopefully you’re an independent consultant or something, since quitting means no UI benefits. Also, hope you don’t have a college degree or white collar experience, because the work requirements mean you’ll be audited and dropped rather quickly if you do, since unemployment is remarkably low with that skill set).

          But please do blog your experiences, especially once your savings run out or Mrs. Van Dyke joins you in Galt Land. I am sincerely, un-sarcastically, interested in how it works for you and how you view it.

          I suspect it will not be what you think it is, but perhaps I only speak for the Texas system. I would not, had I any other choice up to and including selling illegal drugs, subject a family to the Texas food stamp program if I could possibly avoid it.

          But perhaps I merely lack intestinal fortitude.

          • Living on foodstamps is quite doable. I’ve done it while serving my country. It’s not fun, nor healthy, but… meh. Buy 50lbs of flour from costco, plus some yeast and some butter. ($30), spend the rest on meat and carrots.

          • I know its doable. I have know people who have done it. “Not fun” is an understatement. Tom might be willing to cut to the bone and do it. That’s why I’m truly interested in hearing how it goes.

            But most people who talk like that believe the myths of endless good meals and beer. (Not to mention how little. Mrs. Von Dyke would have to be making to qualify).

            What welfare, food stamps, the safety net offer and what many people THINK it offers are worlds apart.

          • Morat,
            No kidding.
            Those welfare queens driving cadillacs were making their money the “old fashioned way” — under the table.

        • Our social contract just broke.

          This comment is only slightly less horrible than Teresa’s.

    • Teresa–my husband is from the former Soviet Union. He knows what real Commies are and Obama isn’t one. Nor is he un-American. Step away from the Fox-o-sphere and get a grip.

        • Maybe she was your last hope Tom, but from my vantage point it looks like she swallowed a large bushel of sour grapes. Anytime somebody throws out the term “unAmerican” for people whose political opinions differ from their own deserves not to be taken seriously.

    • Citizens have voted against America.

      This kind of comment is just horrible.

      • I agree. I look forward to voting for whatever party you’re voting for in four years though!
        😉

      • America is the land of liberty. The land that espouses freedom-loving principles. Obama and progressives generally don’t believe in freedom or liberty that comes with personal responsibility, the principles that our nation was founded on. Obama has shown to be disdainful of those American principles so yes I do say that the Americans who voted for Obama voted against America.

        • America is the land of liberty. The land that espouses freedom-loving principles.

          But not for the queers.

          Obama and progressives generally don’t believe in freedom or liberty that comes with personal responsibility,

          I’m anti-progressive, and even I know that’s nonsense. Let’s take pollution, for example. Progressive say, “take responsibility for the pollutants you spew in the atmosphere and inflict on everyone downwind” while conservative say, “it will cost us too much to take responsibility for pollutants we inflict on everyone downwind”

          Shibboleths do not make for meaningful analysis, nor are they an effective means by which to sway anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.

        • If I may offer what I think is a constructive criticism regarding your method of dialogue?

          You’re using a lot of declarative language when you should be using subjective.

          Change

          “Obama and progressives generally don’t believe in freedom or liberty that comes with personal responsibility, the principles that our nation was founded on.”

          To

          “It’s my opinion that Obama and progressives generally don’t believe in what I call freedom, and the liberty that comes with personal responsibility, which are among the more/most important principles that our nation was founded on.”

          Then you sound like someone who has heartfelt opinions embedded in deeply held convictions – which is admirable – instead of someone who believes that it is impossible for anyone who does not hold your deeply held convictions to be anything other than a monster – which is self-righteous, and more than a little off-putting. And insulting.

          It’s also a sure-fire way to ensure that people who disagree with you in a very small way (which perhaps you can change) to largely discount everything you say, which is counter-productive to say the least.

          • Point taken. That is the way I speak/write saying that it is my opinion without actually saying it in so many words. That is what “I think”, “I believe” or that’s “what it seems to me” may be better words at the beginning of my statements.

          • FWIW, I have to remind myself to do this all the time. It’s something that you’re trained out of in your writing classes. My freshman English teacher in high school: “Don’t start a line with, ‘I think’, we all know it’s what you think, you’re the one writing the damn paper!”

            But on the Intrawebs, people turn declarative language into reading sermons, and it pretty much guarantees that you’re going immediately deep into the weeds.

          • FWIW, I do that as part of my training.
            It’s far safer to say that something “seems” or “tends to” rather than state the matter definitively.
            Those definitive statements can come back to haunt you later.
            Much better to state thoughts and beliefs, note general tendencies, etc.
            To give a formal opinion means it’s something that I can’t later retract– it’s legally binding.
            Well, there are instances where I could retract something, but that would require tampering with documents, which I prefer to avoid.

          • I struggle with this too, and for the exact reason Patrick mentions (it was beaten out of me in class). But the combox isn’t (usually) an essay, it’s a (hopefully-friendly) conversation over coffee, so “tone of voice” is almost as important as the actual ideas.

  3. This shows how gullible the American people are in that they believed Obama’s lies. In addition people believe emotional drivel and set facts to the wayside in belief of a faux “war on women” and “hating immigrants” meme. Apparently belief in the law constitutes hating immigrants to the delusional Americans. Sadly it is obvious after this election that insane Americans make up a majority of the electorate. They believe that doing the same thing will bring a different outcome. For if citizens didn’t they wouldn’t have voted for Barack Obama.

    • Insane? Truly?
      You do your opponents a disservice by calling them insane.
      My opponents might very well be murderers, but I dare not call them insane.

      To do so is to deride any decision they make, to rob them of the ability to negotiate in good faith with you, and to force anyone on your side who does talk with the other side into being an idiot.

    • Sadly it is obvious after this election that insane Americans make up a majority of the electorate. They believe that doing the same thing will bring a different outcome.

      Oh my! Only insane people think that’s the definition of insanity!

      • “Oh my! Only insane people think that’s the definition of insanity!” False! Only a denier of reality would say that.

  4. It is sad that people are incapable of recognizing the rise of Communism when it is shoved right in front of them. I guess people are attracted to pain and suffering in this country because that is what we are headed for more of and more deeply.

      • Bonhoeffer – seriously? Comparing HHS to Nazism is a new low.

        Step away from the Kool-aid.

        • Get your finger off the trigger with the Godwin’s Law stuff. Bonhoeffer is a modern historical example of the church getting rolled by the government and the church being too tepid to take a stand. That’s not to say that if the church doesn’t take a stand then our next stop is concentration camps. It’s simply a comment that the faithful ought to do some soul searching about whether and when to take a stand because, at some point, it will probably be too late.

          • Tim,

            If that was your meaning, the time to be concerned was when the church let itself be co-opted by the the far right of the GOP.

            We’re way past the point where the faithful should do some soul searching about taking a stand over the things central to the faith rather than letting themselves get steered into outrage over stuff that Jesus never even mentioned. When contraception becomes way more important than ‘what you do to the least of these, my brothers’, it is already getting uncomfortably close to too late.

    • … The … Rise … of … Communism?
      Mademoiselle, are you sure you are not a caricature?

      • One of the absolute weirdest events of my lifetime is the utter watering down of the terms “socialist” and “communist”.

        During the height of the Cold War — we had nationalized airlines, heavy unionism, very, very high tax rates compared to now. I believe we even had wage and price controls.

        And we were mad dog capitalists!

        And now — carbon taxes and something like the ACA is “socialism”? We’re further to the right than Nixon and Eishenhower was on everything except personal liberties — blacks are marginalized, gays aren’t shunned, jailed, or killed. But economically? We’re massively to the right of Nixon! We’re to the right of Reagan!

        But we’re socialists? Do the people slinging this term around even know what it means? Of course not! It’s just another word for “liberals” — saying “socialism” makes you think of “communism” which is almost as bad as Nazism but there’s no Godwin’s Law violation.

        Even though any actual socialist would wet himself laughing at you for claiming Obama is ‘socialist’. Heck, Bernie Sanders would get drummed out of any real socialist party — he’d not even make the most conservative, right-wing edge of it. He’d be beyond the pale.

        And yet the term is STILL thrown around. Do you realize saying “Obama” and “Socialist” in the same sentence is tantamout to saying “I have no freakin’ clue what Socialism is, I am just mouthing words I’ve heard like a toddler imitating mommy”?

        • Only because it still has rhetorical power, mostly as a lingering aftereffect of the cold war.

          The conservative definition of socialist seems (and I would welcome any conservative here to correct me) to be “someone who holds beliefs that diverge in any way from the precepts of laizzez-faire capitalism. Back when I was in school, it meant “government ownership of the means of production.”

          It seems me equivalent to me calling you a child molester. “J..bbbbut, I’ve never m0lested a child,” you might respond. That’s all well and good, but I define “child molester” as someone who drives a blue car…

  5. Let me vent for real here for a second. Scouring Twitter for solace among my fellow conservatives, someone mentioned this election isn’t about Americans choosing the wrong guy, it’s about conservatives failing to articulate their principles. Malarkey. Conservatives articulated their principles forcefully in opposing Obamacare from day one. They were right to do so purely on the basis of principle: It has the rare distinction of having gone beyond its constitutional limits with respect to the Commerce Clause, and its technically unconstitutional under the Taxing Clause (though it’s a long shot SCOTUS will reach that issue in the case currently pending). I don’t mean to relitigate Obamacare here. The point is that there were (still are) real problems with it on a principled level. But what happened when conservatives took up the principled fight? They’re tarred as obstructionists. They’re obstructionists when they articulate principles, and they’re flip-floppers the rest of the time.

    This election season has had me writing about politics and the election much more than I’m comfortable doing. I’m obviously partisan, but I can understand and appreciate nuances. Conservatism allows for nuance within a principled framework. As much as I’ve tried, though, I can’t find any legible framework of principles in modern liberalism. In fact, the more I study it the more I confirm that its very essence is the rejection of principles, including principles of liberty. It is Hegel in the form of a political ideology. It is History, ever changing, truth as action, truth as will, truth as power. As an objectivist, as one who believes in universal truth, it simply is not within my constitution to understand liberalism, let alone to be a liberal. And so the sting in losing elections to a liberal like Obama has less to do with what he will accomplish in terms of policy than it does in terms of how his existentialist political philosophy will change how we understand our society and government. What is a “right” if we reject the founders’ concept of negative liberty? Who owes the corresponding duty? I’ve asked that question on these pages a number of times, and despite the number of smart liberals here, I’ve never gotten a cogent answer. This reelection makes it a moot point: We have rights if the Government says so and that’s that. A better answer can neither be expected nor given. The rub is that we also cannot now expect or demand a better answer when the government deprives us of rights, either. We prostituted that principle in exchange for the “right” to government entitlements. The modern liberal America is strikingly illiberal: the government giveth and the government taketh away on its own say so.

    So conservatives and classical liberals will attempt to regroup and define and refine their principles for the next contest. But in addition to the attacks they will receive on top of being “divisive” and “hypocritical,” they will also have to hear that they’ve already lost this fight. For me, that will be the bitterest pill.

    In the meanwhile, I will pray for the health of our aging justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy. With them and the Court, and scarcely anywhere else, our founding principles still live.

    • Conservatives articulated their principles forcefully

      OK, but next time try focusing less on the role of rape in the divine plan. It’s a loser.

        • Honestly, not a squirrel. The GOP is losing women and young people in part because of that uncompromising position on abortion. Few people are for total abortion on demand, but just as few are for not allowing abortion in the case of rape.

          You’re right that the GOP articulated it’s principles. And those principles cost them the election. Opposition to abortion in cases of rape lost big. Opposition to same-sex marriage lost big. Opposition to legalization of marijuana lost big. This was a liberal electoral outcome–in a way and to an extent that caught me off guard. Conservatives have two options: Recognize that; or Repeat the failure.

    • Would you consider posting this statement on the main page, Tim? Or else as post here? I won’t be able to give you what you wish for in terms of an explanation of the liberal view of rights (and so failing to disconfirm your suspicions about us), but I’d be interested to hear what others might have to say about these thoughts – not least whether other critics of the progressive/left viewpoint would substantially agree with your view or whether they’d want to articulate departures.

      I’m sorry that you view liberals and this election in quite so stark terms, though by no means do I fail to understand it having lived through 2004. I hope dialogue can continue, and I suspect these thoughts would be a good place from which to do that. They’ll have more visibility as a post on the main page or even just at DC than as just a comment in a sub-blog. I think they are important.

      • Michael, I’ll plan to revise after I’ve had a chance to sleep on it. I don’t like to be so divisive as i value the readership and conversations with liberals here, and with you in particular. One reason I’m glad the election is over.

        • Me too. Look forward to reading your thoughts after a night’s sleep or two.

          FWIW – I don’t take personal or even intellectual offense to any of what you’ve written here: on the contrary, I appreciate the frankness. I’m on record as a skeptic of the rights concept at some degree of metaphysical remove from the social sphere of reality. Far from being beyond any pale, I think many liberals, or “liberals,” ultimately wouldn’t be able to stand as counterexamples to what I think you truly mean to say here. (Many others, though, I think would, or would certainly claim.) the question is really what kinds of conceptions of liberty and of rights-ideas come to be accepted in political discourse as constituting the referents of those labels. If that’s changing before our eyes tonight (rather than, say, having a development in that set of ideas that is actually of some considerable standing), then there is every reason for people to take note and react to it. I would of course dispute that that’s the case – instead suggesting that what we’ve seen tonight is the failure of a ideological restoration, arguably a radical one, but not actually much of a change. But we can discuss that further. I look forward to it.

          • (…having that development of some standing reaffirmed, that was meant to say, tho that was probably clear from context. Cheers.)

    • “Conservatives articulated their principles forcefully in opposing Obamacare from day one”

      The problem being that its genesis has roots in a Heritage Foundation plan that Romney implemented (and used some of Romney’s same advisers). Politically, yeah there was some vulnerability because PPACA benefits to the average voter are not readily obvious and mostly still in the future, but it lacked resonance because it’s not in the end ‘a government takeover of healthcare’. (but it is a trap for the left, because defense of the PPACA now status quo will necessarily preclude any steps toward single payer or even a public option)

      • I disagree with the conclusion Kolohe. I think Dems will revise the PPACA as needed along the lines of increased government involvement of healthcare.

    • It has the rare distinction of having gone beyond its constitutional limits with respect to the Commerce Clause, and its technically unconstitutional under the Taxing Clause (though it’s a long shot SCOTUS will reach that issue in the case currently pending). I don’t mean to relitigate Obamacare here.

      I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement here. Having passed both houses of Congress, been signed by the President, and then adjudicated by the Supreme Court — represented on both sides by highly competent lawyers — how can it be “beyond it’s Constitutional limits”?

      I realize you may have a personal understanding of the Constitution that is at odds with the decision — many people have such views on many such decisions. Probably any decision, any bill passed by Congress, has at least some portion of American viewing it as beyond the limits of the Constitution. But obviously that cannot suffice to make it so, or else the term has no meaning.

      • I think he’s talking about making the taxation of a negative perfectly legal.
        Commerce traditionally involves an exchange of goods.
        Look at the definition from the Hobbs Act. In adjudication, one of the big differences is the burden of proof in establishing interstate commerce as an individual, where this element is typically assumed for most businesses.
        With PPACA, rather than a tax being levied on a transaction, a tax is being levied in absence of a transaction; that certain transactions are mandated.

        • Yes, I understand what part he is referring to.

          What I do not understand is how it is clearly unconstitutional, having passed the limits of the constitution (there was the use of the word ‘technically’ too, which seems odd) when it, indeed, passed both Houses of Congress, the President’s desk, and then Supreme Court muster.

          I understand how he thinks it is. I don’t agree with him (although, unlike most Republicans, I suspect he is quite sincere. The conservative apoloxey on this in general I find hypocrtical, insofar as it means the Heritage Foundation — and later the GOP — offered as a ‘solution’ something they clearly found unconstitutional for two decades, or that “unconstitutional” is code for “passed by a Democrat”. I don’t think Tim thinks that way.).

          Had he said “I feel it is wrongly decided” or “I feel it will one day be overturned” then I would understand his point.

          Also, I don’t get the “four more years without a budget”. I’m pretty sure we’ve had budgets the last four years, insofar as the government lights are on. It might not be the budget he wanted, or passed by his preferred mechanism, but a legally passed set of bills to fund the government is a budget, regardless of how it’s done.

          • The reasoning behind the decision would suggest that the definition of what would qualify as a tax to be levied has just expanded beyond what we would normally think of such things.

            Since you bring this up, and I’ve seen it a lot elsewhere, I want to touch on this point:
            Tim is certainly a conservative, as is Tom; while I consider myself more of “a conservative” by default– “by default” being the key operative phrase.
            Whereas liberals (or Leftists, or whatever that side of the aisle is calling themselves at any particular moment) apply a label as “liberal” to themselves, it is usually prescriptive (rather than descriptive) in nature.
            “Conservative” (from my view) is more of a descriptive term.

            Therefore, such arguments as “The Heritage Foundation came up with it!” or “But Reagan raised taxes!” have very different meanings when heard the one from the other.
            Or so I see it.

          • I’m saying that Obamacare was held to violate the commerce clause, the basis for it’s passage. It only survived as a tax, something the dems in Congress and the president denied and still deny despite that being the only reason it still exists.

            As for the GOP reversing the position it took on a mandate in the 90s, That’s the frustration. That was the GOP being institutionally conservative, kowtowing to big business. It’s a reckless trait that dems have adopted. The GOP has a countervailing trait in favor of liberalism that the left has rejected, however. So the GOP trends to “flip flop” between protectionism and liberalism while dems appear resolute.

          • Resolute, that is, in terms of protectionism and centralization and regulation, all things illiberal.

    • Kennedy is one of my least favorite justices, and the reasons surrounding that form the basis for a cogent alternative view (which ends in agreement).
      Kennedy is a former prosecutor, and prosecutorial immunity is one of the greatest threats to the enforcement of our rights. If you notice, every time there is an issue between expanding state power or limiting state power, Kennedy is all about expanding state power and whittling away at the rights secured to the people.
      Over the past week, FBI statistics have come out that show that St. Louis is the third most crime-ridden city and Kansas City the 16th. Both of these cities have well over twice the national average of rapes per capita.
      It’s no accident. It’s an official policy.
      In case you missed it, one of the big stories there has been the murder of an attorney beaten to death in his downtown office. His partner was accused, tried, and convicted. Earlier this year, the conviction was overturned, due to the prosecution willfully withholding evidence favorable to the defense.
      Also earlier this year, the federal prosecutors who went after Sen. Ted Stevens received official reprimand and suspension without pay for willfully withholding evidence favorable to the defense. What makes this instance odd is not that they targeted a Senator, but that they were ever reprimanded.
      Again, in the Kansas City area, it is a well-established practice of the prosecutor’s office to pay people who people who are homeless, drug addicts, and/or with serious mental issues for their testimony. They have a state fund set up to do this.
      So think about this for a minute:
      How many homeless people does the state need to offer $3000 to in exchange for their testimony to shut you up and lock you away for a very long time, regardless of whether you did anything or not?
      Rights are enforced through action in the courts.
      Protests don’t cut it.

      To phrase from my own election day post:

      “Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law, it invites every man to come a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.” (United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).

      Which is to say that, in my view, the people of STL & KC, in failing to hold their governmental official accountable under the law, have received precisely what it is that they have specifically requested– a general lawlessness on the part of those public officials.

      It’s simply a part of the general trend toward unaccountabililty in government, which is itself a part of a general trend away from personal responsibility.
      That’s the answer to your question:
      Who owes the corresponding duty?
      It’s the great amorphous mass: The People.
      That’s the purse from which it is free (and allowable, if not openly condoned in a great many cases) to rob from.

      From “In God we trust” to “In government we trust.”
      That’s it in a nutshell.

    • The GOP could have fought harder on healthcare if it had an alternative to offer methinks. They bet the farm on pulling a ’94 all over again but the Dem’s got wise to it and made them pay for it. It’s as simple as that.

      Ever since 2010 conservatives have been acting like they are entitled to run the country with half of one branch of the government under their control. Since they can’t they’ve blocked everything else hoping that the recession and Obama’s paralysis would pay off in 2012. It was a huge play and could have turned out quite well for them (it paid off big in 2010) but they lost their gambit and now with the fiscal cliff looming the piper is holding out his hat to be paid.

      You have my sympathy, losing sucks. I could almost feel bad for the GOP: their whole strategy for the last four years was based on assuming they could seize control in 2012 and then decide all the issues they’ve been deferring the way they like. I’m glad they failed; the incentives a victory in this manner would have created would have been terrible for the country (for one thing Democrats would have been strongly incented to respond in kind). Now the GOP has to decide what they’re going to do. If they just obstruct the Bush tax cuts vanish and huge spending cuts (including huge defense cuts ) are going to simply land in their laps. We’ll also find out if Obama’s bipartisan shtick is heat felt or if it was just a (really really naive stupid) strategy for the first couple of years of his first term.

      • I think the GOP did half the job in fighting hard on health care. They fought hard against Obamacare but they failed to offer a clear and understandable alternative to the voters. The exit polls show that voters want Obamacare repealed and limited government but yet they vote for Obama? That doesn’t make sense.

        • It’s rather simple, really. Many of those who want Obamacare repealed want single payer.
          Democrats always were ungrateful cusses.

          • More competition is the answer, not less competition. When government or any company has a monopoly on something the costs are going to be higher because the people running it are allowed to set the prices to what they wish because of their being no competition.

          • Teresa,
            Funny, the rest of the civilized world spends about half of what we do on health care, and provides better care by most measures.

            I mean, I hate verizon as much as the next bloke, but the VA does a pretty damn good job, as does the NWS. Competition doesn’t seem to do them much good, either, judging by AccuWeather’s accuracy.

          • Teresa,

            If the GOP had articulated a serious plan that increased competition and price transparency, I would have been very interested. Turning healthcare into a functioning market would have been a huge victory. But they didn’t do that. The last time the GOP said, “Not this plan. Let’s come up with a better one,” they yanked the football and went home. I was pretty young, but even I remember that. I’m glad we didn’t get fooled again.

    • Would you go for single payer? 😉
      I’m all for efficiency myself, working in da biz.

      • Single payer would be a bad solution. If you listen to countries that have had or have a single payer system it doesn’t work, or is inefficient. Its not the healthy ones that have to worry about doctor’s visits, its those that are ill that suffer the consequences of bureaucracy and rationing. I’ll have to do at least one post on this on one of my blogs.

        • Lady, you’ve never been deliberately refused a drug because it’s been “overprescribed”, have you?
          Despite your doctor being willing to sign off that “this man will be in the Emergency room” because of lack of treatment ($300/month for pills was unaffordable on my salary). Despite the proven track record of sending a healthy 20 year old man to the hospital for collapsing during routine exercise?
          You’ve never had to pay for a miscarriage because the insurance company classified your emergency room visit as a “voluntary abortion” (they weaseled and welched on every single other bill that was above a certain dollar amount…)

          You’ve not seen people in the emergency room because they can’t afford their meds.

          Rationing is a reasonable part of any free market.

          Dead people are too.

          • Amen.

            She’s obviously also never had someone she cared about denied basic diagnositics for cancer until it was almost too late because the ‘gatekeeper’ physician appointed (yes, appointed, because private healthcare is no guarantee of getting to choose your physician) lost money for every referral prescription he wrote.

            And never had the sort of pre-existing condition that makes a joke of the idea that free market forces can work with HC insurance.

          • I will admit that the free market system of health care isn’t perfect. What is? But government centered health care is much worse as far as rationing goes. The government’s focus is on reducing costs not on humans medical care especially when that care is expensive such as at the beginning of life and at the very end. That is why the state advocates for death – death of babies (unborn) and death of elderly(euthanasia) based on is one’s life worth the amount of money needed to treat the medical condition. Human dignity is thrown out the window.

            Believe me I have experienced a bit of the insurance denials of payment for coverage that they didn’t deem to be emergencies. Even when my doctor told me to go there.

          • In most free market scenarios the consumer has the option to walk away from the transaction. If you are selling me a car and I think that your asking price is too high then I can shop with one of your competitors, or choose to wait on buying a car until you adjust your price. If I walk into a Hospital in the midst of a massive heart attack I do not have the same options. I can either receive treatment, whatever the price, or I can die. Free market principles do not work with healthcare.

          • This makes for an interesting situation, though. Wouldn’t all prices set in life-and-death circumstances be potentially voidable? In that case, what does the market equilibrium for a emergency bypass surgery look like? It’s not what the purchaser is willing to pay or what the seller is willing to sell for.

          • Depends on the circumstances. How urgently are the services needed? Is there time to consult with another doctor? How common is the ailment? Was there an opportunity to obtain a plan whereby the fee would have been fixed in advance but the patient knowingly took the risk? In reality, unconscionable contracts are fairly rare. But I’ve been thinking more lately about what a more market-based health care industry might actually look like, so these are good questions.

        • Teresa, I’ll look forward to that post. I’ve been trying to find an angle myself for a health care post I’ve been working on based on John C. Goodman’s recent book, Priceless. Maybe I’ll get some ideas from your post.

  7. I say no more dang RINO moderates running as imitation conservatives in general elections. We’ve tried that twice and failed twice. The GOP needs to nominate an authentic conservative.

    • Yes, yes, and yes! and, of course, I want to thank you in advance for the upcoming GOP Civil War.
      Because we could all use more lulz.

    • I say no more dang RINO moderates running as imitation conservatives in general elections. We’ve tried that twice and failed twice. The GOP needs to nominate an authentic conservative.

      Damn right! More Mourdocks and Akin, because they had such smashing victories!

      Seriously, Teresa, Mourdock underperformed Romney by 10 percentage points in Indiana, and Akin underperformed Romney by 15 percentage points in Missouri. In both of these conservative states, the moderate GOP candidate won while the very socially conservative GOP candidate lost.

      If those soc cons can’t do better than a RINO even in conservative states, how do you think they’re going to outperform a RINO in the less conservative swing states? And don’t you think that some of the vote against Romney was a consequence of his having to act more conservative during the primaries than he really is? I understand your preference for a real conservative, but do you sincerely think that’s a winning political strategy?

      But thanks for helping to answer one of the burning questions of this election: will the GOP’s right wing learn the correct lessons from this election? As I suspected, the answer appears to be no.

      • Akin made a stupid comment about rape. That is the reason he lost. Or most of the reason. Not because he is conservative. We need someone who can speak eloquently with a teleprompter by their side. Just kidding a bit…. But we do need people who can speak about the conservative vision with clarity. Part is it that people bought into Obama and Biden’s malarky, the media’s lies and memes because their critical thinking skills are lacking and they avoided the truth or reality. Plus the young people and many adults have been indoctrinated by Marxists.

        • OOOH! Marxists! Next you’ll be telling me that Anonymous is Marxist. And Wikileaks, and that the only one who can save us is EFF!

          • Electronic Frontier Foundation

            … you count the people who use n!gger as a regular form of addressing the president to be progressive?? Odd.

        • Part is it that people bought into Obama and Biden’s malarky, the media’s lies and memes because their critical thinking skills are lacking and they avoided the truth or reality.

          Ah, I see. So everyone who’s liberal lacks critical thinking skills and avoids truth and reality.

          And yet you think a candidate who is farther from the median voter is a more likely winner. Righhhhht.

          I think conservatives’ should heed the old warning, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

    • Yes! Go right ahead!

      I thank you in advance for making 2016 a Democratic lock – it will save me time volunteering for campaigns.

      • People woke up during Obama’s first four years. The more Obama and the progressives are out and out open with their Marxism the more people will wake up.

        • Everything Marx told us about communism was a lie.
          Unfortunately, everything Marx Told us about capitalism was the truth.

          — russian humor, obvs.

          • It’s a type of humor I’ve grown to enjoy as I aged.

            As for Marx — I’ve grown to realize he had some genuine insights, but his proposed solutions were crap.

  8. In the spirit of being gentlemanly, I can only repeat my comment from yesterday to Ethan.
    Our system is built for compromise and divided government.

    If the lesson conservatives take away is that they need to do more of what they have been doing, only more forcefully we will win not only the House, but the governorships, by supermajorities.

    America didn’t vote for Marxism, or radical anything. It voted for a sober and sensible plan of free enterprise combined with a vigorous public sphere. It voted according to the Judeo-Christian ethos of community and family and self-sacrificing altruism.

    Conservativsim can do very well, if you only learn to accept America for what it is, not what you wish it to be.

    • “America didn’t vote for Marxism, or radical anything. It voted for a sober and sensible plan of free enterprise combined with a vigorous public sphere. It voted according to the Judeo-Christian ethos of community and family and self-sacrificing altruism.” Nope.

      If people were truly living Christian values and following God’s will then there is no way Obama or any progressive would enter into the equation.

      • Meshuggeneh Christians. Why do we need to listen to the polytheists, again? Why do they insist on telling the Chosen People what they believe in? Why do they insist on appropriating our beliefs, along with half a dozen other religions?

        • Amen to that. Jews once again broke toward Dems in big numbers – must from reading all those evil, progressive things about caring for the poor and powerless that keep turning up in the Torah readings.

          Of course, I seem to recall hearing in church about this rabbi named Jesus who told us to do the same… Eh, must be a different guy than the one Theresa’s church follows.

          • thanks for laughing. I really don’t mean to insult the nice Christians when I call them polytheists ;-P I do it sometimes as a form of stress relief.

          • It’s ok – half my family is Jewish, so I get that it’s (half) joking.

            Really, after all contortions I’ve seen various pastors go thru to explain the Trinity, I completely understand why Christianity looks polytheistic to Jews. I’ve met plenty of Christians who came across as something-less-than monotheists even to me.

          • I like that classic poet El-P’s take on the deity:

            “Why should I be sober when God is so clearly dusted outta his mind?“

      • Actually the Gospels provide a very solid foundation for economic social welfare, and social justice has always been a thriving segment of the Christian community even when it was forced to coexist alongside economic Darwinism.

        I know its comforting to think that there is no way a fellow believer could vote for That Guy; I feel that way in my social justice ministry here in Orange County, when I have to address a room full of Tea Partiers who attend our church.

        But we have over time, found several areas of common ground. You might be surprised.

        • Acts 4:32 – The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.

          D@#n anti-Christian Marxists!!

  9. Just a techie note – is anyone else having trouble “Replying” to an earlier comment? My comments keep showing up as new comments. Very odd. Never happened to me here before.

  10. @Bookdragon

    Actually I did have a pre-existing condition, or a disease classified as such by the insurance company. I was kicked off my parents insurance at around 20 yrs old. But my doctor said he’s call my condition something else so the insurance would cover it.

    I do think that health care access and affordability needs to be reformed. I just don’t think that Obamacare is the right way to reform health care. Personally if it was up to me I wish we could go back to using cash transactions as payment for health care costs and cut out the darn insurance companies from health care period.

    • But my doctor said he’s call my condition something else so the insurance would cover it.

      So you engaged in lying and fraud? Is that WWJD?

    • So… Anyone with a heart attack ought to die? Those average $50,000 at least, and if you think most people have anywhere near that amount of savings… That’s the type of loan that could put you permanently in debt. Let alone if you have a second one.

      • “So… Anyone with a heart attack ought to die?”

        Nope. As far as payment goes I would have some sort of graded scale based on income for those without health insurance. But that shouldn’t be a problem with Obamacare now. Unless people pay the fine. I would have the hospital charge them a percentage of the cost of the hospital services/treatment based on the individuals or families income. But even if the person was unemployed I would have a minimum payment for the person to pay the hospital. Say $1500 or 5 % of the total costs. Now all this can be done on a payment plan. And the hospital would work with the unemployed for a decent amount of time. After that time had passed there would be penalties accrued on a per month basis (small fee such as $10) but no dealing with the credit agencies. Screw them. I can’t stand the whole idea of credit and credit agencies. I think the whole credit agency thing is a racket.

        • The credit “agencies” — I assume you mean banks, are assessing risk. What do you do with someone who can’t pay? And I mean can’t — has PTSD (possibly undiagnosed), and can’t earn enough to pay back anything due to being unable to be on time for jobs.

          Unless someone is willing to pay the rest of the hospital’s bills, the hospital goes out of business. Or nearly everyone gets subsidized, to some extent. A catheterization costs the same whether it’s for someone rich or poor, after all.

          How is the hospital supposed to get paid, before the person is able to pay back? Is that done through a loan? How would it be secured?

          [Not trying to put you on the spot. Am exploring, cause I honestly think that we could have better ideas on the table from all sides.]

          • The hospital already has to deal with the insurance company by negotiating the payment with each other to accept payment adjustments, meaning a lesser payment. Do insurance companies pay the hospitals all at once? Or over a period of time? I’m not sure on this. But I don’t think the hospital would go bankrupt since they already accept lesser payments through insurance adjustments. But this definitely needs more thought on my part.

          • Teresa,
            fifteen cents out of every dollar spent on healthcare in this country goes towards waste.
            And you wonder why everyone else gets more for their healthcare buck?

            The insurance companies have MAJOR incentives to make it really, really difficult for hospitals to get their money. Denying treatment is the easiest form — convincing people that they’ve got to lie about “preexisting conditions” is the more difficult, but financially lucrative form. After all, if the person lied on their form, you can take their premiums until they get sick, and then cancel coverage. The most devilish way of doing this is to “claim” that a sick person had preexisting conditions, even if they didn’t. And then wait until they die. [I know a few people who have written software for these creeps.]

        • Teresa’s proposal is an example of what I consider to be common ground.

          It goes like this. There is, (she implies) a moral obligation to be as self sufficient as one can, and in return the community has a moral obligation to provide care.

          So even the very poor are asked to pay something, even a token amount. In return, the community shoulders the remainder.

          As a liberal, I am good with this, in principle and practice. I would suggest that this sort of transaction is actually the heart of Obamacare- that we are obligated to buy insurance, so we don’t end up becoming indigent welfare cases.

          • I realize the Supreme Court said the insurance mandate is constitutional but I don’t think the justices got this one right since it goes beyond the bounds of the commerce clause. I’m not sure about the whole finagling with the court calling it a tax either. I have a problem with forcing everyone to purchase health insurance. I don’t have a problem with everyone having insurance as an ideal but advocate this on ideas by winning their hearts through persuasion but don’t do it through coercion of the law. Plus, I don’t like how some equate having health insurance with being health care or having access to health care. Yes, there is a connection but just because you have insurance doesn’t necessarily you have adequate access to health care. Having health insurance really means that once you have access to health care it is more affordable than if one didn’t have health insurance.

          • I agree, in part.
            Forcing people to buy insurance is a mechanical device that guarantees a pool of money adequate to take care of those who need it. It is flawed and clumsy.

            But it isn’t the only mechanism that could work- simple taxation and public health care such as Canada or the UK could work.

            I’m sure there are others. However, the individual mandate was politically possible so it was adopted.

            In principle, however the idea is simple- we need to erect a system whereby there is a guarantee of health care for those who need it, while not allowing a free ride for those who refuse to pay into it.

            Alternative ideas of how to accomplish this are of course always welcome. In the meantime, we have what we have, flawed though it may be.

          • Teresa,
            Excellent point on insurance != health care. But Obamacare is working on that, by giving hospitals metrics to measure success (such as fewer readmissions), and paying them accordingly.

        • …as far as payment goes I would have some sort of graded scale based on income for those without health insurance. But that shouldn’t be a problem with Obamacare now. Unless people pay the fine. I would have the hospital charge them a percentage of the cost of the hospital services/treatment based on the individuals or families income. But even if the person was unemployed I would have a minimum payment for the person to pay the hospital. Say $1500 or 5 % of the total costs. Now all this can be done on a payment plan. And the hospital would work with the unemployed for a decent amount of time. After that time had passed there would be penalties accrued on a per month basis (small fee such as $10) but no dealing with the credit agencies. Screw them. I can’t stand the whole idea of credit and credit agencies. I think the whole credit agency thing is a racket.

          So, it appears that what you’re proposing is a regulatory regime far more intrusive than Obamacare. With “sliding scale” payments, you must balance those who pay for %5 of their services, with an appropriate number who pay 200% of theirs. Are you serious about this?

    • Well, I personally would’ve preferred a single payer system, but Obamacare is at least a lot better than what we had, which was rationing by income level.

      Yeah, if you had a heart attack, you could go to the hospital and they’d treat you. Cancer symptoms? If you can’t afford the test, you tend to put it off. Women w/o insurance in this country die of breast cancer at much higher rates than those with it.

      Why?

      Because early detection matters A LOT to outcome and if you can’t afford the test out-of-pocket, you keep putting it off.

  11. I don’t think comparing the HHS mandate with Nazism is an apt analogy. I believe it is more appropriate to compare the HHS mandate to the Kulturkampf.

    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulturkampf

      By the height of anti-Catholic legislation, half of the Prussian bishops were in prison or in exile, a quarter of the parishes had no priest, half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed, 1800 parish priests were imprisoned or exiled, and thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for helping the priests.

      You know, being Christian doesn’t require being a moron. You have free will.

      • So are you legitimizing religious persecution? What are you implying when you say this “You know, being Christian doesn’t require being a moron. You have free will”? How do you think they should have responded to the assault on their religion and the persecution?

        • I meant you, comparing a dispute over what health insurance should cover with what I quoted above.

  12. “And stop saying that SS is a ticking timebomb, it really isn’t.”

    As it is now SS is insolvent. The number of individuals paying for those on SS has dropped dramatically. Or the number of people on SS outnumbers by far those supporting them. If we do nothing SS will go bankrupt and if that happens it won’t be good for future generations.

    • We can fix SS specifically by simply removing the mortgage deduction on second homes.
      Isn’t that easy??
      Yes, it is slightly insolvent, on a temporary basis. A small leak that will subsequently be filled is not the same thing as fishing Medicare.

    • By “insolvent” you mean “drawing down on the surplus it accumulated for exactly this situation” right? This wasn’t some sort of a surprise, and it’s unlikely to be a permanent shift. It’s why the trust fund exists in the first place.

      • Don’t bother. There’s no point in trying. Even if you get them to the point of realizing that back in 1983 everyone saw the Boomer Retirement coming and upped rates to build this vast trust fund, they’ll go nuts screaming about how it was immediately spent and is just a usesless IOU.

        I mean, where else the government was supposed to invest a few trillion OTHER than it’s own debt is a question I’ve never gotten an answer to.

        • I’m just trying to get over the shock that when I bought bonds from General Electric, GE went and spent my money! I mean, how am I supposed to build a retirement portfolio when companies keep going out and using the money I give them for other stuff?

Comments are closed.