I haven’t much to say except to that what happened in Washington tonight has very probably set off a tinderbox, and we will now be in rebellion. May it be a non-violent one, but if violence is what it ultimately takes, we are a people whose nation is founded on such in the defense of human liberty.
[Monday morning update]
Professor Jacobson has a pep talk.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Paul Hsieh on the coming battles. And Victor Davis Hanson says that Obama has crossed the Rubicon. Fortunately, Julius Caesar he’s not.
[Update a while later]
Had enough?
As I have argued now for months – first, in August, here; then, in November, here and here; and, more recently, here, here, and here – a genuine political realignment may be in the offing. This has happened at irregular intervals in our nation’s past – most notably, in 1800, 1828, 1860, and 1932 – and on each occasion the political party benefiting from the upheaval was able to paint a plausible picture depicting their opponents as being parties to a conspiracy to overthrow the liberties possessed by their fellow Americans. This is what Thomas Jefferson did to the Federalists in and after 1800; it was what Andrew Jackson did to John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Nicholas Biddle, and the Whigs in and after 1828; it was what Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans did to the slave power conspiracy and its fellow travelers in the North in and after 1860, and it was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did to Herbert Hoover and the business-minded progressives in and after 1932. When FDR claimed, at the 1936 Democratic convention, that “a small group” of his fellow Americans was intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives,” he was merely rephrasing the charges lodged in an earlier time by Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and their political allies.
Of course, one cannot plausibly advance such a claim except in circumstances where one has a great deal of help from one’s opponents. In 1800, Jefferson profited from the quarrel pitting Alexander Hamilton against John Adams, and by exhibiting secessionist propensities at the Hartford Convention, the New England Federalists destroyed their own party. Something similar can be said regarding Nicholas Biddle and the supporters of the Second National Bank. The same is true for the supporters of the slave power in and after 1860, and Herbert Hoover was in similar fashion a godsend for FDR.
If the Republicans have a comparable opportunity in 2010 and 2012, it is because of what I described in my very first blogpost as “Obama’s Tyrannical Ambition.” Barack Obama has a gift. He has told us so himself, and he is right, but he errs in supposing that his oratorical skill will enable him to fool all of the people all of the time, and over time he has, in effect, unmasked his own party as a conspiracy on the part of a would-be aristocracy of do-gooders hostile to very idea of self-government in the United States. There is no need for me to review the record of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress in the last fifteen months. It is enough to say that, in an administration that promised transparency, everything has been negotiated behind closed doors in a manner suggestive of tyranny and that, in an administration that promised to distance itself from the lobbyists, every major bill has been written by them and is loaded with special deals that give new meaning to the old phrase “corrupt bargain.” The stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, healthcare reform: with these Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have brought home to the American people, as never before, the tyrannical propensities inherent in the progressive impulse. Thanks to them, everyone now knows that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat.
I’m not sure that everyone knows it, but enough to now to make the whirlwind that they’ll reap pretty big in the fall. And perhaps years to come.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another pep talk, from Bill Whittle:
…in terms of limiting the practical and immediate damage, holding it here — just holding it — is important and essential. Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have an IQ of 130 — that would be combined between the three of them and you can get to 150 if you throw in Biden — and so they actually believe that a few months from now, they will be able to add single-payer to this goat rodeo, this bloodbath, this circus of incompetence conducted by this museum-grade confederacy of dunces. It got them a bill that requires people to pay for private insurance — which I am, of course, utterly opposed to on every level — but that is way short of single payer and we MUST hold the line here and not an inch further until reinforcements arrive in January. And they will. In numbers that will astonish and amaze the most optimistic among us.
We need to understand the great lesson we have learned about these people in this debate. Barack Obama is, to the liberal cause, a politician that comes not once in a decade, or once in a generation, or even once per century. Barack Obama is, to them, a once in history opportunity for progressives to control this country, and they will fall on a forest of swords to achieve those ends because this is the best chance they have ever had or ever will have to permanently shackle the people to the state. They know that this Health Care fiasco will cost them the House and now perhaps the Senate in November, but that new Congress will not seat until January and in the ten months between now and then they will, I predict, start an orgy of legislation that will make this Health Care circus look like a tea party.
But it seems to me that they have spent every dime of political capital in the bank and have done nothing less than awoken from it’s long and deep slumbers the American Giant, who in attempting to sit upright discovers the Lilliputian threads that have been staked into the ground with finishing nails and who looks around, blinking and disoriented, fatter and softer and much, much poorer than he was when he last opened his eyes back in 1941, but possessed now as then with a terrible anger and capable still of mighty exertions.
So, to the short term: everybody knows that Reid and Pelosi and The Lightworker himself, obviously, are all hoping to use this bill as the foot in the door for the stuff they really want: A single-payer National Health System, or at least the “public option,” which is simply single-payer on the installment plan. We can’t let them get that. Going forward, we can’t let them get single-payer, or cap and trade, or amnesty, or any of it.
We’ll see if their political tone deafness continues.
[Update mid morning]
Another pep talk, from Moe Lane: things we were told we couldn’t do.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jim Treacher says it’s not fair to call this a political Jonestown for the Democrats, because Jim Jones only killed 900 people.
Gentlemen, start your lawyers.
The ghosts of Rand and Heinlein are rising.
Clearly, the soap box has failed.
The ballot box is next.
I pray that we do not in my lifetime have to resort to the one that comes after that…
The blue and the gray fought during a time when people understood honor. This fight is with the dishonorable and will have many unexpected twists.
Nothing substantive will happen. Americans aren’t that different from EUropeans. If an fascist EU state is acceptable to 400 millions EUropeans, it’ll be acceptable to 300 million Americans. Dark Age ahead.
I fear that this will not end well for anyone.
Is it paranoid to advise folks not to let their frustration and disappointment to extend to making threats or advocating acts of violence on the web? Given the fact that Homeland security has already mentioned their looking for right wing
activiststerrorists is it within the possible that they’re data mining the web for same?Not to mention all those new IRS agents.
SO first this wasn’t going to pass, lots of Rand links to articles to support that position.
Now it’s “set off a tinderbox”…
Goodness me.
I’m fairly sure nothing is going to happen. Lawsuits will fizzle out. People will notice the sky hasn’t fallen in and immediately a bunch of people who previously didn’t have access to insurance and the kids of people who did will have (yes, that happens immediately not 2014)…
Repealing that in 6 months ain’t going to look that appealing either.
Next up: I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dems and Obama get a modest poll bounce out of this either. Although they’ll still get a good beating in November it probably won’t be an apocalypse.
Oh and thanks! That was exactly the kind of over reaction I was looking forward to reading today.
And, that sensation you’re feeling? It’s the one that about half the country were feeling for much of the last decade.
Nasty, isn’t it?
Have a nice one!
“And, that sensation you’re feeling? It’s the one that about half the country were feeling for much of the last decade.”
Here is some inconvenient history for “Dave On”.
During that last decade, for which Dave On feels such despair, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for only four years, 2003-2006. Republicans and Democrats shared control for two years, 2001-2002. And Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the last four years, 2007-2010.
How do you think the public will answer the question, “are you better off then you were four years ago?” The Democrats can’t get away with blaming the Republicans anymore. They now own the mess.
Not at all — I plan to follow the Duston Doctrine and forgo buying insurance altogether. Ca-ching!
Nasty, isn’t it?
Sure as heck is! Especially for my house keeper. When I see her later this morning I am going to inform her that I will be laying her off on anticipation of tax increases.
Daveon’s and the other State-fellators are happy, because there’s now more State to fellate. They like their States big, hard and rough.
DaveOn,
watch and see how many jobs this costs, as Michael just said.
My son is a GM in a Dominos franchise. His company does not offer any insurance, but they are NOW going to close two stores, laying off people to get ahead of the taxes. His owner set that up months ago at the suggestion of his accountant and lawyer. That’s only about 18 people, which is a small number, but there are THOUSANDS of franchisees, in many companies, who will now do this.
I can’t wait for the markets to open this morning, can you say bloodbath?
.
.
March 22, 1765
The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act. It was THE biggest single item that pushed good English subjects of King George to start a war to relieve themselves of Taxation without Representation.
March 21, 2010
The United States House of Representatives passes HR 3590. Proving, once and for all, that little has been learned in the last 245 years.
This morning, I question the validity of my military oath. The country I took an oath to protect, ceased to exist last night, IMO. I don’t know about you, but I did not sleep well. And like others here, I think we’ll see rage, violence and riots soon.
Oddly, a year ago when Gerald Celente predicted just that, people scoffed. Personally, my plans of moving out into the country, just got pushed forward. Currently I live in an apt, near a university, near a police sub-station, a fire dept and two grocery stores.
It looks like ground zero for trouble.
Food and ammunition I was already stockpiling. It shall continue.
The present rate of taxation is already beyond the point where raising taxes reduces government income as it reduces productivity more than it increments the tax rate. The present deficits are unsustainable.
I can find very little evidence in the history of man where government shrank without violence.
The combination of the three concepts is scary.
Dudes and dudettes, ya gotta read what Mencius Moldbug has to say on the subject (if you have a spare 400 hours).
His take on things is that the problem is not that there is either an evil or a good-natured dictator in charge, but that no one is in charge of much of anything these days.
He speaks of FDR as acting as a dictator, and comments that, in his opinion, FDR was an intellectual lightweight, he had some smart people around him, and those smart people could actually get stuff done. Now, at least from an executive-branch-of-government standpoint, no one can get much of anything done, because what was once a personal fiefdom under FDR is spread out, at least, among multiple DC buildings.
I think what we see here with these bills-that-no-one-person-knows-what-is-in-the-1000-pages-apart-from-Paul-Ryan-who-even-the-Republicans-don’t-much-listen-to is that what has taken hold of the Executive branch of government has pretty much taken hold of Congress. There is a bureaucracy of Congressional staff writing enormously complex bills that their patrons, i.e. the elected officials, have no clue or even control over the content.
Mencius Moldbug’s take is that the problem here is not that bad people are now in charge, but that no one is effectively in charge of much of anything anymore.
Nasty, isn’t it?
Yes, you are indeed.
I’m afraid that I have my doubts as to whether there will be effective opposition to this, at least if the perceived “solution” is to elect more Republicans. Consider that the main thing that I am seeing this morning are lots of appeals for money for “Republican” and “conservative” candidates.
Anyone can claim to be a conservative, but how much scrutiny will potential donors give them as to their past voting records(where applicable) or to their statements and written records? And being “Republican” doesn’t mean a darn thing, since there is a great deal of truth in the observation that both Republicans and Democrats are just the two wings of the statist party.
I think that the main beneficiaries will be the scam artists and hucksters that make up a lot of what is described as “Conservative Inc.”
I submit as evidence of this the following article, which appeared before the vote on American Conservative’s blog:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2010/03/20/freedom-scam/
we will now be in rebellion
The sad thing is, you probably believe this, just as you believed that Obama was unelectable, that the NJ and VA governors races were a “death blow” to health care reform, that the House would never believe Senate promises about reconciliation, etc. Your crystal ball could use some Windex.
As policy this bill is the sort of thing the Republicans were proposing (and, in MA, passing) not long ago. But as the Democrats incorporated more GOP ideas, the GOP opposition grew increasingly hyperbolic. Amping up the stakes only helps your cause if you win; now they’ve squandered their credibility and made Obama and Pelosi’s victory appear even more momentous than it would have otherwise.
As David Frum (an opponent of the bill) was saying last night, it doesn’t even matter if this bill hands the GOP control of the House in November. Congressional majorities come and go; health care reform is forever. Watching the Democrats flail after the Scott Brown election and ultimately find their backbones reminded me of Churchill’s comment on Americans: that they can be trusted to do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives. Those Congressmen can take pride in standing for something greater than themselves and their re-election chances.
” Watching the Democrats flail after the Scott Brown election and ultimately find their backbones reminded me of Churchill’s comment on Americans: that they can be trusted to do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives. Those Congressmen can take pride in standing for something greater than themselves and their re-election chances.”
Like expanding the power of the State, with its concomitant diminution of individual liberty, is a good thing.
Tell us, Jim, on Bizarro Planet, do you celebrate the Fourth of July? If so, what is it exactly you’d be celebrating?
that the NJ and VA governors races were a “death blow” to health care reform
Nope. But they certainly were a death blow to single payer.
Watching the Democrats flail after the Scott Brown election
I didn’t enjoy that nearly as much as I did your week-long absence from ttm.
We ended up with something I think is better than single-payer OR the public option: A government-mandated but privately-operated nonprofit insurer, to be part of the insurance pools that come online in 2014. I see that as a pretty ingenious way of using the power of free markets to lower premiums.
You clearly do not understand how free markets work.
Oh, snap.
Like expanding the power of the State, with its concomitant diminution of individual liberty, is a good thing.
Extending insurance coverage to 32 million Americans is a good thing. Saving tens of thousands of lives lost each year due to inadequate coverage is an exceptionally good thing. Protecting people in the individual insurance market from outrageous premium hikes, rescission, denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions (including being a victim of domestic violence!) — those are good things. Giving people the freedom to change jobs or start businesses without fear of losing health coverage is a good thing. Giving the Medicare trust fund another 9 years of solvency is a good thing. Ending subsidies to politically-connected middlemen in the student loan business (and saving the taxpayers billions) is another very good thing.
Tell us, Jim, on Bizarro Planet, do you celebrate the Fourth of July? If so, what is it exactly you’d be celebrating?
The birth of an ideal of enlightened, representative self-rule. Yesterday was a step towards that ideal.
Billwick1 wrote:
“Like expanding the power of the State, with its concomitant diminution of individual liberty, is a good thing.
Tell us, Jim, on Bizarro Planet, do you celebrate the Fourth of July? If so, what is it exactly you’d be celebrating?”
The GOP’s current strategy is to simply oppose everything the DEMS want to get done, hoping that the resulting mess will get the GOP back in the sadle. Now, that’s really helping our country….
Do you celebrate the Fourth of July?
Do you think the current mess the health care is in is good for our individual liberty? We are completely at the mercy of the companies. What liberty?
Jim,
Does ‘forever’ go past when entitlements cause the US to go bankrupt in 15 to 20 years?
“Extending insurance coverage to 32 million Americans is a good thing. Saving tens of thousands of lives lost each year due to inadequate coverage is an exceptionally good thing. Protecting people in the individual insurance market from outrageous premium hikes, rescission, denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions (including being a victim of domestic violence!) — those are good things. Giving people the freedom to change jobs or start businesses without fear of losing health coverage is a good thing. Giving the Medicare trust fund another 9 years of solvency is a good thing. Ending subsidies to politically-connected middlemen in the student loan business (and saving the taxpayers billions) is another very good thing.”
Very noble, Jim. You’re a regular Spartacus. Over in the pro-liberty Protein Wisdom blog there’s a discussion of “people who value liberty over dependency.” versus their opposite number–the “people who value dependency over liberty.” I guess we know which camp Jim falls in.
So, Jim, you actually think that the point of the Declaration of Independence and the war to overthrow British rule was so that one day we’d have socialism? My, you do live on Bizarro Planet. If that was the point, I think the Founders, the Minutemen, et all, would have been better off staying home in bed.
Also, on Bizarro Planet, “self-rule” apparently means “letting others rule you.” What a strange world you inhabit.
“You clearly do not understand how free markets work.”
Businesses compete with one another, in a manner that lowers costs and improves quality of service for the consumer?
Our system to date has done this in theory, but not in practice. Now, with insurance pools becoming available to cater to the uninsured, we’ll see real competition and real improvements in quality and cost. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my hat. Well…I’ll buy a hat and then eat it. Not big on hats.
Obama might even sink lower than Carter. Johnson tried to have guns and butter at the same time in the late ’60s with Vietnam and the Great Society. That set the stage for the stagflation that brought Carter down. Obama is trying to have guns and butter … Afghanistan and gov’t sponsored health care … at the same time too.
You know it’s pretty bad when the democrat governor of my state pleaded with the democrat delegation to vote against it because of the unfunded mandates that it imposes on the States … which, BTW, will probably file legal action to prevent it.
It may not be the end of the world but it is the end of any American-led human exploration of Space beyond LEO. You can kiss that goodbye now. Soon the US will not be able to afford much more than a few satellites. Now we’re seeing the real reason, the one I suspected all along, behind Obama ending HSF (Human Space Flight) beyond LEO. He’ll need every penny to spend elsewhere. He’s just looking for a graceful way out.
Maybe my future grandchildren will see humans return to the Moon or go to Mars but they won’t be speaking English unless we hitch a ride with the Chinese or Russians.
For those supporters of HSR (High Speed Rail), it’ll be next on the chopping block.
There is nothing “Bizarro Planet” over watching elected Representatives debate (ad nauseum) over a bill, and then take a vote at which the majority wins.
Regarding the Founding Fathers, one of them, Thomas Paine, proposed paying the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age. Sounds like Social Security to me.
Regarding “dependency” – we’ve had Medicare for quite some time, and I don’t see those receipients being at all bashful about criticizing the government.
Gene Earl (a new State-shtupper to this blog, I think) writes in response to one of my posts: “The GOP’s current strategy is to simply oppose everything the DEMS want to get done, hoping that the resulting mess will get the GOP back in the sadle. Now, that’s really helping our country….” What would help our country is more liberty and less statism. Have no idea if the GOP’s strategy is as you describe; you’d better ask a registered Republican. about that. As long as the Democratic Party is dominated by Il Dufe and his anti-liberty appartchiks, then, yes, I’d say opposing every theing the Dems wnt is good for our country, since everything the Dems want seems to result in less liberty.
“Do you think the current mess the health care is in is good for our individual liberty? We are completely at the mercy of the companies. What liberty?”
You have the liberty of not dealing with the insurance companies. Try not dealing with the State. Then send us a post from prison.
Yes, Bilwick, but “the liberty of not dealing with the insurance companies” means not getting serious, life-threatening conditions treated….or getting them treated and then having to file for bankruptcy as a result. Get real, here.
So Chris, because Thomas Paine once proposed a plan that has parallels to Social Security, that made him and every other Found Father a proto-statist? You and Jim seemed to have both studied history and logic at Bizarro Planet University.
“Yes, Bilwick, but “the liberty of not dealing with the insurance companies” means not getting serious, life-threatening conditions treated….or getting them treated and then having to file for bankruptcy as a result. Get real, here.”
I am real. The insurance companies can force me to give them money, or threaten me with jail if I don’t comply. If you equate not providing you with a good or service at a price or under the terms you like, with being able to initiate physical force, your ethics are seriously skewed.
By the way, just as an intellectual exercise in Bizarro Planet logic, if I own an insurance company, and I choose not to provide you with insurance at a price you like, or under the conditions you’d like, an you show me logically why you have the right to force me to do so?
Correction of a type: obviously I meant the “insurance companies can[‘t] force me to give them money” . . . although on Bizarro Planet, where these State-fellators live (in their heads), apparently they can do so. Must be hell living on Bizarro Planet.
I’m always amused with the collectivists quote Tom Paine. Because they can find no others among the founders in the slightest sympathy with them.
We are completely at the mercy of the companies.
No. Companies are regulated by the consumer, unless… Government steps in with mandates to screw that up. The only exception is antitrust.
Competition is good; Anti-competition is something the government can fight to the benefit of all.
You are blinded by the individual evil that a company can be. With competition, that evil is greatly limited.
It certainly does not. Paine was a radical at heart; he was for change for the sake of change.
Of course, you won’t find that on a Social Security propaganda website (rolleyes), so that will be news to some.
Uninsured people are a drain on the economy, and are a big reason premiums are so high. So a person who refuses to be insured SHOULD be charged a fee for doing so. It’s no different than the requirement that if you’re going to drive you have to have your automobile insured….if you’re going to live, you have to have your health insured. Private insurers are still going to be in competition for your business, only now they won’t be able to rake in profits by refusing people the services they’ve paid for.
“I’m always amused with the collectivists quote Tom Paine. Because they can find no others among the founders in the slightest sympathy with them.”
They wouldn’t even find Paine synmpathizing with them much. If you read COMMON SENSE, it’s clear if Paine were alive today, they’d be ganging up on him for promoting “hate speech.” When it came to arguing against staism (hoever inconsistently) Paine made Rush Limbaugh look like Ned Flanders.
Rand – there is this idea that “The Founders” all shared the same ideas about government. That’s simply not the case – they ran all the way from radicals like Sam Adams and Tom Paine to conservatives like George Washington. They all had different visions of what “good government” looked like. Since health care in their time was ineffective at best, we have no idea what they would have thought about the current plan.
Bilwick1 – you can choose not to deal with insurance companies. Unfortunately, that choice probably means “early death” since very few people can sell-insure for serious medical treatments. Freedom to get sick and die doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.
Rand – there is this idea that “The Founders” all shared the same ideas about government.
It’s not my idea. Yet another straw man from Chris.
Here’s my radical health-care platform: I provide for my health care as I choose, and you provide for your health care as I choose. It’s called “a free society.” Think you can wrap that Aristotelian intellect aroudn that concept, Ethan?
As for the uninsured, all the wealthy “liberals”(statists) who bankrolled Il Dufe in his climb to power ( the Beverly Hills Bolshies, the Park Avenue Pinkos, etc.) could take the money they now channel into ant-libertarian causes and candidates, they could just buy every uninsured person a decent insurance policy. Soros, Oprah and the Kennedys alone could handle that, no problem.
AND THEN LEAVE THE REST OF US THE F**K ALONE! Is that too much to ask, Ethan?
“Since health care in their time was ineffective at best, we have no idea what they would have thought about the current plan.” Unless you actually read what they wrote and said about liberty-versus-statism in genera; and not only that, but read the writers who inspired them (Locke, the Radical Whigs of England). Then it’s pretty easy to extrapolate.
“Freedom to get sick and die doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.” Yeah, we get it, Chris. Freedom isn’t high on your scale of values. You’d gladly take the Grand Inquisitor’s deal (see THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.) Having Mommy and Daddy State take care of you is your highest value. Like Jim, you’re the Bizarro Planet Spartacus.
,
You’re a crazy-person if you really believe all that. Either crazy or damn paranoid.
Oprah should be forced to pay for covering the uninsured, but it’s fascism if your taxes have to go up by thirty cents a month!
Oprah should be forced to pay for covering the uninsured
What a stupid misinterpretation of what he wrote.
“As for the uninsured, all the wealthy “liberals”(statists) who bankrolled Il Dufe in his climb to power ( the Beverly Hills Bolshies, the Park Avenue Pinkos, etc.) could take the money they now channel into ant-libertarian causes and candidates, they could just buy every uninsured person a decent insurance policy”
Yeah, Rand?
“Could” != “should be forced to.”
Only a mindless collectivist would so misinterpret plain English in such a way. Because they like to force people to do things. It’s called “projection.”