The left is perfectly comfortable, in fact righteous, in its own role of vocal, often virulent dissent:

• Free speech is regarded as one of the foundations of western civilization when it’s the Code Pink ladies or Earth First! people attacking Bush; but free speech is racism and the “thinly veiled” violence of reactionaries when it’s people like the tea party crowd.
• Speech that attacks presumed excesses of power is a virtue when it’s Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid calling the CIA and Bush liars; free speech is racism when it’s Joe Wilson blurting out the truth that Obama lied about providing illegals health care.
• Speech attacking Republicans as from the party of “old, white men” is fair comment, with nary a thought about any racial or other stereotypes; but if one opposes Obama, one is a racist.

It’s been 2 weeks since the President’s speech to the joint session of Congress and almost that long since the Tea Party March in DC. But a quick scan of the cable news channels over this past weekend shows that the chattering class is still at it, trying to make a case that all opposition to Obama is based on a loathing of the color of his skin.

Jimmy Carter came out of mothballs to tell us that he knows the opposition to Obama is simply deep-seated racism that still lingers in the hearts of white people who just hate to see a black man in office. Carter’s condemnation of the opposition gave the perfect cover to the faux journalists on most of cable and all the network channels to pound the “racist” theme to the exclusion of real news.

Always willing acolytes, the media trotted out speaker after speaker, (including President Clinton who managed to talk up both sides of the issue), to comment on Carter’s ridiculous comment.

This is all a feint, intended to draw attention away from the substance of opponents’ concerns and to dismiss all of us as knowing evil-doers and bigoted haters, or people who are just too simple-minded to know the racist motivations behind their own actions, people whose speech, in any event, should be ignored if not suppressed.

If any of the race war protagonists, or any of you, gentle readers, think that this has caused me to review my own thoughts or beliefs for signs of latent racist tendencies, think again. Rather, I chastise those who would make such spurious accusations against fellow Americans, many of whom voted for Obama, and many more of whom loyally supported him in the first months of his term.

(And, a special note to Mr. Carter: Go home and get busy doing something you know how to do, like building houses or wearing sweaters, and leave the rest of us alone.)

In its patent efforts to prop up this president they love, our pathetic news media jumped at the opportunity to attack his attackers, and to ignore embarrassing or potentially damaging news stories it should be investigating, such as:

• The President’s flirting with accepting failure in Afghanistan by not providing more troops as requested by the military, even though he said this was the “right” war to fight;
• The President’s single-minded (and I say simple-minded) solution to nuclear threats through unilateral disarmament;
• The President’s weakening the country’s and our allies’ defenses by failing to make good on the long range missile defenses that we promised to deploy in Eastern Europe, a foreign policy give-away to Russia at the expense of new democracies and our own safety;
• The President’s legitimizing Ahmadinajad as President of Iran despite the still contested election and the Iranian government crackdown on dissenters who reject the government-declared election results;
• The President’s continuing to bend over backward for the increasingly intransigent bullies and saber rattlers, Iran and North Korea, getting nothing in return for his diplomatic largess;
• The President’s allowing the criminal investigation into CIA interrogations to go forward, contrary to what he said initially, and further weakening our intelligence community;
• The President’s throwing Israel “under the bus,” calling its settlements an “occupation” while continuing to reach out to its enemies, including Iran whose leader recently has again denied the Holocaust;
• The President’s support of Manuel Zelaya, the left wing would-be dictator in Honduras who tried to go against his country’s constitution by overstaying his term in office, putting Obama on the same side of the issue as dictator-thugs Hugo Chavez and Brazil’s Lula De Silva (remember the latter’s tirade blaming the banking crisis on “blue-eyed white people”);
• The President’s continued apologies for, but never praise of, the United States, once again decrying our past “sins” in his UN address today;
• The President’s evasions about his associations with ACORN, the corrupt community organizing group that was instrumental in his election, that has already received tens of millions of tax dollars, and was scheduled to receive up to billions of dollars in stimulus money;
• The President’s increasing the power of the executive branch by forming a legion of “czars” who have enormous authority and power and our tax money to spend, many of whom have dubious characters and credentials, such as admitted “communist” Van Jones;
• The President’s failure to explain how the country will pay for any of his proposed agenda without amassing a huge deficit and burdening generations to follow;
• The President’s changes and evasions on his health-care “plan” which is still not yet formulated as a specific plan;
• The President’s embarking on a series of trade protectionist measures to please his union constituencies;
• The President’s actions in orchestrating government takeovers of large sectors of the economy and further shrinking the private sector, the latest successful effort being the federal government takeover of all student loans to the exclusion of private carriers;
• The President’s designs to eliminate or marginalize talk radio (aka dissenting speech) by means of resurrecting the so-called Fairness Doctrine via a “diversity panel” at the FCC to replace current programming with “local content” and content that represents more “minorities and women” but which will act to stifle conservative speech.

This list is by no means exhaustive of the types of policies that many of us oppose. And for voicing these concerns we are branded “racists.” One would think that the left, which applauds the freest of speech for itself (Remember how Bush was pilloried as a “Nazi?” The movies about assassinating him? Congress booing Bush at a joint session?) would stand up for all speech, even that of the opposition. Sadly, this is not the case.

Instead, the left is calling up the troops to fight a race war, thinking that the race card is an ace up their sleeve that will win the political game by stifling criticism of Obama and deflecting attention away from the real concerns of the day, such as:

• the groups of terrorists determined to destroy us,
• the nation states that support them and are determined to acquire nuclear arms,
• and a Commander in Chief who thinks that the best defense is no defense.

In leveling charges of “racism,” the left and their media lackeys attack what now has become a majority of people in this country who either oppose or question Obama’s far-left radical agenda. But they will find the opposition is not suiting up to fight those phony charges.

I for one will not engage in any “racist” battle. I do not deem the attack worthy of defending. I stick a flower in the barrel of that charge, and challenge the left to turn around, and face our real enemies.

·         a government takeover of a huge segment of the economy;

·         rationed care, especially for the elderly and the very ill;

·         skyrocketing costs; and

·          a huge increase in the already gargantuan deficit.

But despite all his (choreographed) townhall appearances before (hand-picked adoring crowds of pro-Obama) American citizens, our President does not assail these supposed myths one by one, teaching us why people’s fears are misplaced.

The President is a lawyer, and should know how to argue his case to the American people.  But we hear no substantive discussion of the facts from him, just generalities and promises, and, as always, ridicule of those who dare to disagree.

As trial lawyers know, if the facts are with you, you argue the facts.  If they’re not, you argue the credibility of the opposition.  The facts are not on Obama’s side, and so he and his allies have set about attacking the character of the opposition.

So far we’ve been called:

·         rude and uncivil;

·         shills for insurance companies or radical groups;

·         Nazis;

·         racists who hate Obama because he’s black (even though undoubtedly a goodly percentage of protesters voted for him and/or supported him after his election);

·         un-American;

·         mindless enough to believe patently untrue “myths”;

·         laughable;

·         brainwashed by evil cable news channels; and, LAST BUT NOT LEAST,

·         “wee-wee’d up.”

Yes, the President of the United States, in his latest blast at those opposed to Obamacare, fired a charge that in August people just get all “wee-wee’d up,” a phrase incomprehensible to all but his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, who suggested that it had something to do with bed-wetting.  (Check out videos of both IMPOTUS and Gibbs on “wee-wee” at http://tinyurl.com/nbvfle.)

What on earth was he thinking, this man who is claimed by many to be our most glorious presidential orator?  (And one has to wonder if that kind of speechifying still gives MSNBC’s Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg?  Or maybe it would go down his leg…)

While Obama keeps attacking Americans with increasingly demeaning and ridiculous charges, and repeating that opposition is based on “myths,” he does not attack the “myths” themselves:

·         There’s no teachable moment where Obama shows us how his plan will not lead to a government takeover of health care and private insurers being forced out of the market.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be sure the private market will survive a public “option.”

o   He doesn’t explain how provisions in the Bill banning new private plans will affect your ability to change or add to your policy.

o   He doesn’t explain how you can “keep your private insurance if you like it,” as he keeps repeating, if the insurers are no longer in the market.

o   He doesn’t explain how you can “keep your private insurance if you like it,” if your employer drops your coverage, choosing to pay a fine instead.

o   He doesn’t explain how you can “keep your private insurance if you like it,” if your premiums go sky high as the insurers’ costs rise under the plan.

·         There’s no teachable moment where Obama shows us how his plan will not end up covering illegal aliens.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured of this when his plan contains no enforcement mechanism.

o   He doesn’t explain how Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, a negotiator in ongoing Senate Finance Committee talks, was wrong when he recently said:

“The bill passed by the House committees is so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including making taxpayers fund health care subsidies for illegal immigrants.”

o   He doesn’t explain how you can only get to his figure of 47 million uninsured if you count those illegal aliens.

·         There’s no teachable moment where Obama shows us how his plan will not lead to publicly funded abortions as part of the standard coverage for women.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured of this when abortion is so much a part of the DNA of the left who are demanding abortions be covered.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured of this when the Bill does not specifically exclude that coverage.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured of this when it’s not clear the so-called Hyde Amendment, which generally bans public funding of abortions, would apply to the public option plan.

·         There’s no teachable moment where Obama shows us how his plan will not end up rationing health care, particularly for the elderly and the very ill.

o   He doesn’t explain how a limited number of doctors, nurses, medical facilities and equipment are going to treat millions more patients without rationing care.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured of this when Obama himself said that someone his grandmother’s age maybe should just take a pain pill instead of getting a hip replacement surgery.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can be assured that rationing won’t result in people dying prematurely if denied coverage of life saving prescriptions or surgeries.

o   He doesn’t explain why the charge of “death panels” is a laughing matter under those circumstances.

o   He doesn’t explain how we can save on medical costs without rationing when 80% of all medical costs come from the last years’ of life, meaning seniors and the very ill account for most of the costs.

o   He doesn’t address how his plan’s reliance on “QALY” standards will not result in rationing for the old and very ill.

Wikipedia defines the QALY as:

“The quality-adjusted life year (QALY) is a measure of disease burden, including both the quality and the quantity of life lived. It is used in assessing the value for money of a medical intervention. The QALY model requires utility independent, risk neutral, and constant proportional tradeoff behaviour.

The QALY is based on the number of years of life that would be added by the intervention. Each year in perfect health is assigned the value of 1.0 down to a value of 0.0 for death. If the extra years would not be lived in full health, for example if the patient would lose a limb, or be blind or be confined to a wheelchair, then the extra life-years are given a value between 0 and 1 to account for this.”  (Emphasis added.)

Want your life to be reduced to a formula implemented by some anonymous government board of bureaucrats?  That’s just what happened to this woman under Oregon’s government health plan.  (See the video at http://tinyurl.com/ngky3k).

The video shows the Oregon woman, who was denied life saving chemotherapy drugs by the government run health plan, which offered her doctor-assisted suicide instead.

One of the “evil” pharmaceutical companies, upon hearing of her plight, provided the drugs free of charge, and the woman has survived her cancer because of the prompt treatment.

The term “death panel” has been greeted with a lot of derision and even chuckles on the part of the president.  But I bet that Oregon woman wouldn’t think the phrase exaggerated in the least.

I actually think that the current plan of rationing care, which is:

·         to be based on QALY, cookie-cutter templates and protocols;

·         decided by a board of government employees who have never laid eyes on you;

·         who don’t have to answer to you personally; and

·         whose decisions are not subject to appeal;

is arguably more insidious than “death panels” where at least you’d get the chance to confront your condemners and spit in their faces before being led away to take your pain pills and await death.

These are only some of the questions Obama and his allies are not addressing, choosing instead, once again, to demonize the opposition as a way to blast through their programs.  Which leads to the question, why no teachable moments from the President?

Obama and his allies do not delve into the facts with us because:

·         single payer is where they’ve always wanted us to be.  (See Obama say this at http://tinyurl.com/m3ze63 and Barney Frank say the same thing at http://tinyurl.com/n7qo2y)

·         they’re OK with a government takeover, because they hate the private sector and think their form of government will know best what’s good for us;

·         they’re OK with individuals suffering rationing and losing private insurance if it means the “masses” are served.

“To me ethics is doing what is best for the most,” said Saul Alinsky, the radical whose teachings became the guidebook for then community organizer and now President, Barack Obama.  (Rules for Radicals, 1971, by Saul Alinsky, p. 33.)

That statement provides the main truth behind the government plan:

If some individuals (or many individuals) must get sacrificed for the “good of all,” as they in their ultimate wisdom see it, well, that’s just too bad.

This radical President and Congress value the “masses of humanity” over individual human beings.  They value their vision of what America should be over Americans themselves.

This is the real teachable lesson from this debate.

IMPOTUS, an acronym I’ve coined for “I am the President of the United States,” as Mr. Obama so often says of himself, (he did it again in a speech last Thursday) has ceased acting as president of the United States for some time now, his presidency done in by his own hand, by his own executive fiat.

He’s no longer acting as a President of the United States, but as a political ideologue representing only the approximate 20% of the populace considered to be the radical left base of the democrat party.

We saw it first in a change in his demeanor.  Gone are the honeyed words of post-partisanship, of post-racialism, of outstretched hands to unclenched fists.  No, he now resembles a 3^rd world dictator, (maybe that’s why he’s so comfortable with Fidel, Hugo, & Manuel), jutting out his chin (always reminding me of Mussolini), and threatening to ram his policies down your throat if you don’t willingly go along.

Now we see pouting and anger when things don’t go his way, accusing others of wrongdoing, vilifying and demonizing the opposition.

As with all dictators, (remember Animal Farm’s Napoleon and his attack dogs), IMPOTUS has his union thugs, his moveon.org zealots, his (federally funded, convicted for fraud) ACORN activists, to do his bidding, apparently at his beck and call.

For that’s what happened just this week when IMPOTUS was displeased with the level of anger people showed toward his health care plan at town hall meetings across the country.

The people’s anger was not only justified, it was foreseeable, brought on by the fear engendered by IMPOTUS’s policies.  As Peggy Noonan, known for her measured tones, said of the protesters in her weekly Saturday Wall Street Journal column:

“And all they ask in return (from their congressman) is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much.  Really, that’s all people ask.  Expectations are very low.  What the protesters are saying is, ‘You are terrifying us.’”  (Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2009.  Emphasis added.)

            Consider the sources of the protesters’ fears:

·         the 1,018 page health care bill that lawmakers have not read;

·         the report of the Congressional Budget Office that the plan will add billions to the deficit, and

·         undoubtedly result in millions of Americans losing their private coverage, and being dumped into the public plan;

·         the threat that the plan will take away or change our relationship with our doctors;

·         the plan’s imposing health care rationing, especially for seniors and the very ill;

·         the plan’s imposing an unprecedented level of bureaucratic meddling in our health care, one of our most private affairs;

·         automatic withdrawals from your bank accounts to pay for government health care;

·         on top of the other humongous, deficit-creating bailouts, the un-stimulating “stimulus,” and the pork laden budget; and

·         a cornucopia of new taxes proposed to pay for all the spending, from cap & tax energy taxes which will hit everyone, to VAT’s, to middle class income tax increases, to surtaxes on the “rich” (just wait- IMPOTUS will one day decide that you, too, are among the “rich).

A President of the United States would:

·         use his rhetorical skills to answer the people’s reasonable questions;

·         use his intelligence to actually read the bill and become familiar with its provisions;

·         learn what provisions of the bill are troubling people so much and try to address them;

·         try to enact a bill that is the best bill to serve the people as a whole;

·         listen calmly and with deliberation to all the people; and

·         take his time to get it right.

A President of the United States would not:

·         vilify dissenters from his plan as Nazis, fronts for the insurance companies, and right-wing corporate lobbyist thugs storming town hall meetings, saying they are just trying to “hurt” the President”;

·         ridicule over half of the population, (because it is now over 50% who oppose his heath care plan according to polls) including some of the very people who voted for him;

·         have his cronies disparagingly refer to protesters (incorrectly, by the way) as well-dressed Brooks Brothers types, the assertion being that they are just liars and paid operatives, and not genuinely concerned Americans;

·         cast the same aspersions on them as he did on “tea baggers” earlier this year; and

·         he would not allow his cronies, surrogates and others in his party to do and say these false, hateful things.

This is how the President of all the people would act and not act.  But what did we get from IMPOTUS this week?

The President’s People Calling Out Union Thugs:

On Thursday, August 6, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, sent the message out to democrat senators to “punch back twice as hard” at those contentious, but non-violent dissenters at recent town hall meetings. (Check out http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25891.html)

Gee, how (un)surprising it was then, that the very same night, SEIU union thugs went to a town hall in St. Louis and beat up Kenneth Gladney, a black guy who had the nerve to sell buttons and flags to conservative attendees.

The attack on Gladney resulted in the arrest of SEIU union members for assault and disturbing the peace.  (See video of the assault and pictures of Mr. Gladney, who had to be hospitalized for his injuries at http://tinyurl.com/l53nub)

(By the way, while you’re looking at those pictures, try to identify the “Brooks Brothers” protesters.  All I see is regular folks.

And if those veterans and seniors have “manufactured” and “faked” the anger we’ve seen them show at these town hall meetings, as IMPOTUS says they have, then the best actor Academy Awards this year must go to them.)

The President’s Snitch Program

IMPOTUS, a former constitutional law professor who should know all about the First Amendment, is so upset about others expressing their opposition to his programs that he has now set up a snitch email campaign on the White House website.

He wants his many minions to email him information, including the identity of those saying “untrue” (untrue by what standard, please?) or “fishy” things about his health care proposal.  (See this unprecedented and outrageous website spy campaign at http://tinyurl.com/kpl3qe)

Query:  Since IMPOTUS has not read the bill, how would he know what’s being said is untrue?)

Something’s fishy all right:  This program is un-American, and probably illegal.  Many complaints about it, including some from people in his own party, have failed to get through the message how offensive and frankly terrifying this spy program is, or to get IMPOTUS to discontinue it.

To borrow and paraphrase from the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, let me say this loud and clear:

Mr. Obama:  Tear Down This Site!!

The President as Hypocrite in Chief

We have a Community Organizer who is now angry with people for organizing simply because their ideas are opposed to his.  What’s a celebrated and worthy activity for him, is an evil sin for others.

It’s OK for SEIU and ACORN (which gets your tax dollars to do its “organizing”) and moveon.org to organize and “get in their faces” as IMPOTUS famously said on the campaign trail last year, but when others organize in contentious but non-violent ways, IMPOTUS says:  “we will punch back twice as hard.”

Another example of this hypocrisy came this past Thursday as IMPOTUS gave a speech at a campaign rally in Virginia for a local senator.  (See clips of the speech at “The Two Faces of Obama” at http://tinyurl.com/nmjeey).

In that speech, IMPOTUS begins as a “uniter” but ended up as a “divider,” accusing some Americans of making the current economic “mess,” that others, like him, will have to clean up, stating that he didn’t want the mess-making Americans “to do a lot of talking” but to just “get out of the way.”

(I had always thought that there were multiple hands, spreading over multiple Administrations and Congresses–Barney Frank and the Freddie Mac “mess” for one–who contributed to our economic problems, but I guess it’s just IMPOTUS’s opponents who have made all the problems and who’d now better just SHUT UP!)

Mr. Obama, before your presidency becomes irretrievable, it’s time to stop campaigning and start leading America, taken as a whole, and with all her people, not just your far left base.

As you forever keep reminding us, you are the President of the United States, representing all Americans of every stripe.  Show honor to the honor bestowed upon you by the millions of trusting, hopeful Americans who have showered you with respect and goodwill.  They deserve and expect you to return that in equal measure.

This is the same disrespect and dismissive treatment that The Tea Partiers got earlier this year from the Administration, and shows a real disconnect with the American people!

As another part of the Administration’s trying to silence opposition, on the official White House web site, Big Brother is asking Americans to spy on each other by reporting “fishy” reporting on the internet about the Bill.  I guess that means me and this blog, too!  Take a look:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

Obama voters, is this the kind of America you thought the President would bring?  If not, I urge you not to sit back and just watch things unfold, but take action along with the rest of us who believe:

·         this Bill is not change we believe in;

·         we are being lied to about keeping private coverage and rationing, especially for seniors;

·         that Americans snitching to the White House on other Americans’ exercise of free speech is un-American; and

·         we are ready to fight back!

Easy Way to Contact Your Representatives:

If you feel as I do that the current Health Care Bill HR 3200 should be stopped and that lawmakers should come up with a better plan to reform, not revolutionize, our health care system, you should check out the Townhall Online site below.

It’s a very easy way to contact your senators and congressmen to voice your views. 

There is an editable message pre-written for you, and the site will send your message either via email or letter to your representatives based on your zip code.

I just did it, and it took only a minute.

I frequently hear people complain about what is happening on health care.  This is a quick way to do something and voice those concerns.

Here’s the site:  http://www.responsiblehealthreform.com/node/8?origin=thn.

Consider Donating for Ads against the Bill in Key States:

If you would like to contribute more to the effort, consider making even a small donation to the League of American Voters which is sponsoring ads against the Bill in key states.  I heard about them through Dick Morris, author of the best seller “Catastrophe,” political commentator, and former Clinton advisor.

I have made a donation, and hope you will, too.

You can see the proposed ad, check the organization out and make a donation at:  http://leagueofamericanvoters.com/

It’s not enough to hope others will stop these outrages.  We all must act.

Make no mistake about it:  they will not be satisfied until their brand of government has taken over as much of the private sector as possible, a goal they are well on their way to accomplishing.

In the intensely private, life-and-death area of health care, Big Brother has set about not to reform our health care problems but to create an entirely new government-run system.

This mirrors what Big Brother is trying to do with our system as a whole:  tear down capitalism so that a socialist form of government can emerge.  They are using the recession as an opportunity to revolutionize the very foundation of our government, rather than merely reform it.

Big Brother uses lies and fear tactics and overwhelming complexity coupled with an impetuous rush to act in order to accomplish their ends:  redistributing wealth from the “haves” to the “have-nots,” ends which in their view justify any means.

How do they lie to you?  Let me count (at least some of) the ways.

Lie No. 1:  Our Health Care System Is in Crisis and Must Be Replaced.

            The truth is Big Brother wants to take over health care because it occupies about 1/5^th of the economy, and therefore would go a long way toward accomplishing the “ends” discussed above.  Once they get hold of health care, we’ll never get it back in private (your) hands.

As one of the President’s political mentors, the 70’s radical Saul Alinksy, wrote:

“A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of (men’s’) lives-agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.”  (Rules for Radicals, 1971, Saul D. Alinsky, Prologue, pp. xxi-xxii.  Emphasis added.)

And so we see the President using his rhetorical skills to hammer away at how bad our health care is, which is not true, but necessary to convince people in order for “change” to take place.  The truth is that our health care is the best in the world, with people deprived in other single payer (state run) health care systems coming to this country for treatment.

In fact, around 85% of Americans say they are satisfied with their health care coverage and their doctors.  I always thought that 85% was a solid B, not the failing grade that the President and his cronies are alleging.

While we do need to do something for the remaining 15%, we don’t need to tear down a system that is working for most, especially if it means replacing it with a gargantuan, incomprehensible, bureaucracy-expanding nightmare that is the proposed House Bill 3200, (the “Bill”).

          Lie No. 2:  Their Health Care Plan Will Save Money.

This one is really a whopper.  In the last month the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 3 separate reports has projected that the health plan’s trillion dollar price tag will result in increasing costs and therefore the deficit, already swollen by the (failed) stimulus.

(Attention young people:  you will be paying for the rest of your lives for Big Brother’s power grabs, and the outsize growth of entitlement spending, and you, as much as anyone, should be fighting back.)

Common sense tells us that if you add millions of people to an already strained health care system, then costs will rise, taxes must rise to meet them, (just today Larry Summers said the Administration couldn’t rule out a middle-class tax increase), and coverage will be reduced (rationing).

            Lie No. 3:  You Can Keep Your Health Plan If You Like It.

Last week, I detailed the dishonesty in this frequent mantra heard from the President.  (Check out the piece entitled: When You’re That Smart, Who Needs Facts? linked at the sidebar.)

It bears repeating here that Obama is disingenuous at best because any public option will eventually lead to a single payer.  They want single payer, folks, because that’s where the most power is.  A public option plan leads to single payer by squeezing out the private sector over time.

            Lie No. 4:  We Aren’t Advocating a Single Payer System.

Catch Obama describing himself in 2003 as a “proponent of single payer universal health care” and vowing that we’d have it when the Democrats take back the White House and the Congress.  Watch how passionate he is in this video clip and convincing about his desire for single payer, and then compare it to how (unconvincing) he sounds today about protections for Americans in the Bill (the one he admits he hasn’t read and isn’t familiar with.) http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/june/barack_obama_on_sing.php.

This same single payer sentiment was recently repeated by Representative Barney Frank when confronted by proponents of single payer.  He said that he’s all in favor of single payer, but that getting a public option is the first step to getting there.  (Check it out at http://atr.org/barney-frank-public-plan-best-route-a3616.)

            Lie No. 5:  Seniors Have Nothing to Fear.

As a lawyer, I’m used to reading unreadable pieces of legislation and regulations that state and federal governments produce in such vast quantities.  (You would think they are being paid by the word.)

But even with my legal education and experience, a scroll through the 2,541 sections of the Bill (with its multiple sub-sections and sub-sub-sections) is enough to make your head swim.  (The Democrat Rep. from Michigan, John Conyers, summed up why he wasn’t going to read the bill by saying that he’d need 2 days and 2 lawyers just to get through it.)

It’s also enough to make you angry, because a subject so intimate and important in each individual’s life, should not be dealt with in such a convoluted, opaque (whatever happened to transparency?), incomprehensible, truth-obfuscating way.  For a bill this important, every American should be able to go online and read it and understand it.

I’ve read in its entirety the section of the Bill on “Advance Care Planning Consultation” for seniors and the terminally ill.  I think it is shocking that this is what is in store for Americans who make the mistake of growing old and/or sick.

The bottom line is that “orders for life sustaining treatment,” (which will be made by some government board) will be explained to the individual who can state his or her preference, but does not have control over the order made.

Big Brother would like these individuals to quit being a drag on the economy and the health care system and to agree to “limit some or all specified interventions.”  (The Bill, Section 1223, subsection (hhh)(1)-(5).

Translation:  These mandatory consultations will have as a main purpose encouraging the very ill and seniors to agree when stating their “preference” to “limit” or forego such things as:

·         intense medical intervention;

·         transfer to a hospital;

·         use of antibiotics;

·         use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.  (See subsection (hhh) (5)(A)-(B), sub-subsections (B) (i) through (iv).

So let’s get this straight:

·         In the first place, seniors and others deemed too old and/or ill to benefit from a treatment for a long enough period of time will have their health care rationed;

·         (Why give them a pacemaker or a hip replacement or dialysis or chemo treatments when a more able-bodied, younger person-perhaps even an illegal alien who is covered under the Bill-may get more years’ benefit out of it);

·         We have enough taxpayer money to provide subsidized health care for 12 million illegal aliens;

·         We have enough taxpayer money to spend billions for clunker cars at $4,500 apiece, (which supports Big Brother’s UAW voting bloc, and props up the industry Big Brother just bought (conflict of interest here?);

·         We have enough taxpayer money to pay for abortions, also covered in the Bill; (I guess “privacy” protects a woman’s choice to end the life of a viable fetus, but there’s no privacy protection for the elderly or ill to make a choice and prevent the government from prematurely ending their lives.)

·         We have enough taxpayer money to pay for the extremely expensive transgender sex-change operations;

·         But there’s not enough money to pay for antibiotics and a little liquid nutrition for seniors and the terminally ill so they don’t die of thirst or starvation;

·         And we put those seniors and the ill on the spot to agree to this treatment in advance so we can say we’re not responsible for ending their lives.

I say that as Americans we can do better than this.  We don’t need to fix the 15% that is the problem by tearing down the 85% that works.  We can reform, not revolutionize.  And we don’t need to do it on the backs of those least able to protect themselves, the old and the ill.

Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” not just the young, the able-bodied, or those in key Democrat constituent groups, like union workers and illegals.

Our Founding Fathers had it just right; Big Brother’s got it wrong.