Ronald Radosh's Blog, page 16

The Future—As Seen from Restoration Weekend

Ann Coulter at Restoration Weekend. (Photo by author.)

 

I’m writing this column from Restoration Weekend, the yearly confab of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a good a place as any to get a sense the mood of conservatives and Republicans, as they watch the implosion of Obamacare alongside the entire nation.

The political journalist Michael Barone told me at lunch that he thinks it’s the equivalent of the fall of France, when the great nation collapsed in a few days during World War II. Despite differences between Tea Party conservatives and other Republicans, all seemed to agree that Obamacare will get only worse and that the emphasis of all campaigns should be on presenting market-based alternatives to the worst policy fiasco in our nation’s history.

With her usual sharp humor, Ann Coulter warned of the dangers of wasting time and effort challenging Republicans already in House or Senate seats during primaries, with so-called “more pure” conservatives, many of whom never won elected office and have no experience. Coulter said such candidates are only chosen because someone has proclaimed them more conservative, singling out in particular Jim DeMint for intervening in a Georgia primary against a solid conservative with popular support. She also said she wished Liz Cheney would have gone to South Carolina to live and waged a campaign against Lindsey Graham, instead of challenging a conservative incumbent in Wyoming who otherwise would definitely win his seat again. During another panel, Fox News contributor and former Bush administration official Richard Grenell argued the opposite, praising Cheney for running, since he regards her as someone not afraid to take on Washington in support of tough foreign policy positions needed to offset the many fiascos of the current administration in Syria, Benghazi, and Iran.

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And so we get to the growing disaster of Obamacare, the problem of which was boldly displayed on television a night ago by Fox News’ liberal contributor Kirsten Powers. By now, most of you have heard of her angry rant about the cancellation of her very good insurance policy, which gave her exactly the coverage she wanted, which was not substandard, and which she would have to replace with a  policy on the exchanges that would cost more and give her less, and force her to pay for coverage she did not need or want. As Powers put it:

My blood pressure goes up every time they say that they’re protecting us from substandard health insurance plans, because there is nothing to support what they’re saying. I have talked about how I am losing my health insurance. I’m having, if I want to keep the same health insurance, it’s going to cost twice as much. There’s nothing substandard about my plan. All of the things they say that are not in my plan are in my plan, all of the things they have listed. There’s no explanation for the doubling of my premiums other than the fact that it’s subsidizing other people.

They need to be honest about that, that that’s the reason they don’t want to change it. It’s because they’re basically taking the people who are responsible enough to get health insurance in the individual market and asking them to subsidize other people. So they’re taking young healthy people and asking them to subsidize other people. I don’t think that’s going to last, frankly. I think they’re trying to buy time until they think they’re going to reach this next deadline.

Powers hits upon the very premise of Obamacare. It is meant not as a health policy, but as a mechanism for redistribution of wealth, created in the guise of medical insurance. By insisting that people pay for what they do not need, it is in effect a mandated policy imposed on the young and healthy, who are asked to pay big bucks for things they don’t need, to cover the costs of elderly people on the exchanges whose medical needs they will be paying for.

The Future- as Seen from Restoration Weekend

I’m writing this column from the Restoration Weekend, the yearly confab of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a good a place as any to sense the mood of conservatives and Republicans, as they watch the implosion of Obama Care alongside the entire nation.

The political journalist Michael Barone told me at lunch that he thinks it’s the equivalent of the fall of France, as the great nation once collapsed in a few days during World War II. Despite differences between Tea Party conservatives and other Republicans, all sides seemed to agree that Obama Care will get only worse, and the emphasis of all campaigns should be on presenting market based alternatives to the worst policy fiasco in our nation’s history.

Amidst her usual sharp humor and observations of the follies of liberals and Democrats, Ann Coulter warned of the dangers of wasting time and effort challenging Republicans already in House or Senate seats during primaries, with so-called “more pure” conservatives, many of whom never won elected office and have no experience, and are only chosen because someone has proclaimed them more conservative, singling out in particular Jim DeMint for intervening in a Georgia primary against a solid conservative with popular support. She also said she wished Liz Cheney would have gone to South Carolina to live instead, and waged a campaign against Lindsay Graham, instead of challenging a conservative incumbent in Wyoming who otherwise would definitely win his seat again. During another panel, Fox News contributor and former Bush administration member Richard Grenell argued the opposite, praising Cheney for running, since he regards her as someone not afraid to take on Washington in support of tough foreign policy positions needed to offset the many fiascos of the current administration in Syria, Benghazi and Iran.

And so we get to the growing disaster of Obama Care,  the problem of which was boldly displayed on television a night ago by Fox News’ liberal contributor, Kirstin Powers. By now, most of you have heard of her angry rant about cancellation of her very good insurance policy, that gave her exactly the coverage she wanted, that was not substandard, and that she would have to replace with a  policy on the exchanges that would cost more and give her less, and force her to pay for coverage she did not need or want. As Powers put it:

My blood pressure goes up every time they say that they’re protecting us from substandard health insurance plans, because there is nothing to support what they’re saying. I have talked about how I am losing my health insurance. I’m having, if I want to keep the same health insurance, it’s going to cost twice as much. There’s nothing substandard about my plan. All of the things they say that are not in my plan are in my plan, all of the things they have listed. There’s no explanation for the doubling of my premiums other than the fact that it’s subsidizing other people.

They need to be honest about that, that that’s the reason they don’t want to change it. It’s because they’re basically taking the people who are responsible enough to get health insurance in the individual market and asking them to subsidize other people. So they’re taking young healthy people and asking them to subsidize other people. I don’t think that’s going to last, frankly. I think they’re trying to buy time until they think they’re going to reach this next deadline.

Powers hits upon the very premise of Obama Care. It is meant not as a health policy, but as a mechanism for redistribution of wealth, created in the guise of medical insurance. By insisting that people pay for what they do not need, it is in effect a mandated policy imposed on the young and healthy, who are asked to pay big bucks for things they don’t need, to cover the costs of elderly people on the exchanges whose medical needs they will be paying for.

That is the big secret about why people are getting cancellation letters for their individual policies and much later, people who get policies through employers will find the firms they work for dropping the policies and forcing them into the Obama exchanges as well. It was meant to do precisely that, because otherwise, the entire program would collapse.

On Facebook, University of Chicago political scientist Charles Lipson explained its real meaning in these words:

Why do I keep emphasizing the fundamental problems with Obamacare? Not just because I think it is a full-scale public policy shambles, the worst domestic policy mistake since high-rise public housing. Not just because I think the President either didn’t understand his own signature achievement or else he deliberately deceived the public when he said you could keep your policy and your doctor. Not just because the same problems that affect individual insurance policies will swamp group plans next year. Not just because I think the President’s statement yesterday was lawless when he said he would simply ignore the ACA’s specific provisions. (What happened to his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the laws?) All these are indicia of a deeper problem: Washington has become an overreaching Nanny State, run by smug elites who know better than ordinary people what we should do, think, buy, invade, or snoop on. This Nanny State is precisely the GOAL of this administration, sometimes nudging but more often simply ordering. It goes well beyond providing an essential safety net, which I favor. It starts to mandate more and more behavior, strip away the liberties of a free people, transfer wealth for the sake of distributional equity, and muddle headlong into complex markets with no understanding of the unintended consequences. That is EXACTLY what you are seeing with Obamacare. It raises the most fundamental questions about the country’s future–ultimately a choice between a European-style social democracy and an American-style central government of limited and specified powers.

Lipson has it right. Barack Obama is trying his best to implement “the fundamental transformation” of the United States he spoke about as his goal in the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama Care is but the first step. It is now up to conservatives and Republicans to stop fighting each other, and to unite around the common goal of stopping the political victory of the Left, embodied in the program that exemplifies its goals and that is now slowly eroding. No wonder the people attending Restoration Weekend are optimistic about the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divided and United, Songs of the Civil War that Demand to be Heard Again and Again

 

Divided and United: The Songs of the Civil War

Produced by Randall Poster, Essays by Sean Wilentz and John Cohen.

Meant to honor the memory of the most divisive time in America’s past, the Civil War, this tribute to those who lived in our country at the time is a CD to cherish and play again and again. Indeed, nothing is more appropriate to explore the meaning of the War during its 150th Anniversary than listening to the stories of the soldiers. These citizens fought, lived, loved, and died in the thousands in this time of trouble.

If there is any justice in the music business, this compilation, produced by Randall Poster, music advisor for Wes Anderson’s films, assisted by the bluegrass guitar virtuoso par excellence Bryan Sutton, will win the Grammy for best traditional folk album. The much-abused and actually fairly meaningless term “folk music,”- since those playing the kind of songs on this album call themselves traditional singers and not folk-singers. So too does “Dr.” Ralph Stanley, who on these discs contributes “The Vacant Chair,” a song memorializing the death of Lt. John William Grout of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry, who died at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. Stanley, whose voice long ago passed from the quality he had as a young man, could be singing in the voice of chastened veterans who themselves might have seen many of their comrades fall in battle.

What makes the performances stellar and unique is that the artists are drawn from the royalty of the best Nashville has to offer. From the community of old-time and traditional singers and pickers, as well as others like the young New Yorker and banjo master Noam Pikelny, they each use their own musical taste to try and capture what they think is how the songs were meant to be played and sung in the era in which they were written.

The Triumph of the Left in New York City: How and Why De Blasio Won

Make no mistake about the outcome of the mayoral election in New York City. It marks a triumph for the far Left, in the most important big city in the United States. The huge electoral majority for Democrat Bill de Blasio is much more than simply a victory of another “progressive,” as he calls himself. It is a victory for the old Communist Left and its descendants, the New Left of the 1960s, and marks a leftward turn in the Democratic Party nationally.

As an analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal by Sophia Hollander puts it, “New York overwhelmingly elected an unabashed liberal activist and political strategist who is sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and once spent time in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinistas.”

Just as Chris Christie’s gubernatorial win in New Jersey gives political clout to the anti-Tea Party Republicans nationally, and makes Christie a contender for the Republican nomination for president, the de Blasio win strengthens the most left factions of an already left-leaning party. It will work to push a candidate like Hillary Clinton further to the left in her campaign for the Democratic nomination, as well as give a bounce to those on the left who favor the nomination of Elizabeth Warren as their candidate of choice.

As a shrewd analysis by David Freedlander in The Daily Beast makes clear, it is also a victory for a third political party from which de Blasio emerged, the so-called Working Families Party founded by Dan Cantor, the brains behind the now defunct New Party — the openly socialist group which Barack Obama once affiliated with. It makes the WFP, Freedlander writes, one of the “political power brokers of the first order” in the new post-Bloomberg city administration.

Cantor, the party’s founder, was a labor organizer in New Orleans and New York who also worked with ACORN before he turned full-time to building the new political organization.

The strategy Cantor devised — of building a party on which voters for the Democrat can vote on election day not by pulling the lever on the Democratic slot, but on that of the Working Families Party — is shrewd. It gives the left a power base because many who voted for the Democrat are far to the left of the regular candidate, and hence, when a Democrat wins, that third party can say their votes provided the margin that put him over the top. The party can then make demands for a pay-off once the regular Democrat is in office.

Now, de Blasio actually comes from that third party, and has staffed his organization with its activists. The strategy is an old one for New York City. In the 1930s and 40s, the left wing of the CIO trade union created the American Labor Party, a line on the ballot that allowed those further to the left than FDR to vote for him in the national election, while also being able to run candidates for local office on their own ticket. In the late 1940s, the anti-Communist leaders split and the Communist Party, USA and its followers took over the ALP. Henry A. Wallace ran on this line in 1948. As a result, he gathered enough votes to put New York City in Republican Tom Dewey’s column. To counter the ALP, the anti-Communist union leaders and politicians in 1944 created the Liberal Party, which became, for a time, the major power-broker in New York politics.

The only real national success the ALP enjoyed was to elect far left and pro-Communist Congressman Vito Marcantonio, who from 1938 to 1950 sat in the House and reliably followed the party line on every single foreign policy issue as demanded by Stalin and the Kremlin.  Now, the Working Families Party follows the same script mastered by the Communists in New York City in the 1940s, as the WFP has, in effect, become the rebirth of the old far Left ALP in a new guise.

Cantor himself signaled the meaning of de Blasio’s campaign in these words:

I think the basic view is that this thing has succeeded way beyond what anyone thought it might. The Working Families Party helped make the de Blasio ascension possible. The work we have done to inject issues of income inequality into the debate, from the first day—we have been articulating and advancing a policy of fairness over these last 10 years. The right’s view is that vast inequality is the price you pay for freedom. They are very clear on this. And our view is vast inequality is the price you pay for stupid rules. We are Rooseveltians. When people are secure that they are going to retire with some dignity, they are not less free.

Cantor’s party has already won major victories in races for the City Council, where it created a “Progressive Caucus,” whose supporters are drawn from:

A) the successor group to the old ACORN,

B) the Communications Workers of America,

C) the United Federation of Teachers,

D) and the successor union to the old Communist-led Local 1199, Dennis Rivera’s SIEU 1199 — still as far left as it was when the old CPUSA essentially ran it.

Bob McManus spelled it out correctly in the New York Post, where he wrote that the WFP is a “ a laser-focused, hard-left-leaning coalition of militant private-sector unions, grasping public-sector unions, and advantage-seeking hangers-on now masquerading as a ‘progressive’ mainstream political party.” Writing that the WFP is a vehicle for “advancing the narrow, often-reactionary interests of unions,” McManus stresses that de Blasio will have a far-left City Council giving him power to put across his economically dangerous schemes.

These include raises for unions, which are demanding retroactive pay increases (since they have been working without contracts for over three years); an end to pension reform; and, of course, higher taxes on millionaires to fund free pre-school education. No wonder de Blasio has pledged to stop the growth of charter schools favored by the African-American poor, whose interests he claims to represent. The UFT is against them, and that’s what counts.

The Triumph of the Left in New York City: How and Why de Blasio Won

Make no mistake about the outcome of the mayoral election in New York City. It marks a triumph for the far Left, in the most important big city in the United States. The huge electoral majority for Democrat Bill de Blasio is much more than simply a victory of another “progressive,” as he calls himself. It is a victory for the old Communist Left and its descendants, the New Left of the 1960s, and marks a leftward turn in the Democratic Party nationally.

As an analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal by Sophia Hollander puts it, “New York overwhelmingly elected an unabashed liberal activist and political strategist who is sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and once spent time in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinistas.”

Just as Chris Christie’s gubernatorial win in New Jersey gives political clout to the anti-Tea Party Republicans nationally, and makes Christie a contender for the Republican nomination for president, the de Blasio win strengthens the most left factions of an already left-leaning party. It will work to push a candidate like Hillary Clinton further to the left in her campaign for the Democratic nomination, as well as give a bounce to those on the left who favor the nomination of Elizabeth Warren as their candidate of choice.

As a shrewd analysis by David Freedlander in The Daily Beast makes clear, it is also a victory for a third political party from which de Blasio emerged, the so-called Working Families Party founded by Dan Cantor, the brains behind the now defunct New Party — the openly socialist group which Barack Obama once affiliated with. It makes the WFP, Freedlander writes, one of the “political power brokers of the first order” in the new post-Bloomberg city administration.

Cantor, the party’s founder, was a labor organizer in New Orleans and New York who also worked with ACORN before he turned full-time to building the new political organization.

The strategy Cantor devised — of building a party on which voters for the Democrat can vote on election day not by pulling the lever on the Democratic slot, but on that of the Working Families Party — is shrewd. It gives the left a power base because many who voted for the Democrat are far to the left of the regular candidate, and hence, when a Democrat wins, that third party can say their votes provided the margin that put him over the top. The party can then make demands for a pay-off once the regular Democrat is in office.

Now, de Blasio actually comes from that third party, and has staffed his organization with its activists. The strategy is an old one for New York City. In the 1930s and 40s, the left wing of the CIO trade union created the American Labor Party, a line on the ballot that allowed those further to the left than FDR to vote for him in the national election, while also being able to run candidates for local office on their own ticket. In the late 1940s, the anti-Communist leaders split and the Communist Party, USA and its followers took over the ALP. Henry A. Wallace ran on this line in 1948. As a result, he gathered enough votes to put New York City in Republican Tom Dewey’s column. To counter the ALP, the anti-Communist union leaders and politicians in 1944 created the Liberal Party, which became, for a time, the major power-broker in New York politics.

The only real national success the ALP enjoyed was to elect far left and pro-Communist Congressman Vito Marcantonio, who from 1938 to 1950 sat in the House and reliably followed the party line on every single foreign policy issue as demanded by Stalin and the Kremlin.  Now, the Working Families Party follows the same script mastered by the Communists in New York City in the 1940s, as the WFP has, in effect, become the rebirth of the old far Left ALP in a new guise.

Cantor himself signaled the meaning of de Blasio’s campaign in these words:

I think the basic view is that this thing has succeeded way beyond what anyone thought it might. The Working Families Party helped make the de Blasio ascension possible. The work we have done to inject issues of income inequality into the debate, from the first day—we have been articulating and advancing a policy of fairness over these last 10 years. The right’s view is that vast inequality is the price you pay for freedom. They are very clear on this. And our view is vast inequality is the price you pay for stupid rules. We are Rooseveltians. When people are secure that they are going to retire with some dignity, they are not less free.

Cantor’s party has already won major victories in races for the City Council, where it created a “Progressive Caucus,” whose supporters are drawn from:

A) the successor group to the old ACORN,

B) the Communications Workers of America,

C) the United Federation of Teachers,

D) and the successor union to the old Communist-led Local 1199, Dennis Rivera’s SIEU 1199 — still as far left as it was when the old CPUSA essentially ran it.

Bob McManus spelled it out correctly in the New York Post, where he wrote that the WFP is a “ a laser-focused, hard-left-leaning coalition of militant private-sector unions, grasping public-sector unions, and advantage-seeking hangers-on now masquerading as a ‘progressive’ mainstream political party.” Writing that the WFP is a vehicle for “advancing the narrow, often-reactionary interests of unions,” McManus stresses that de Blasio will have a far-left City Council giving him power to put across his economically dangerous schemes.

These include raises for unions, which are demanding retroactive pay increases (since they have been working without contracts for over three years); an end to pension reform; and, of course, higher taxes on millionaires to fund free pre-school education. No wonder de Blasio has pledged to stop the growth of charter schools favored by the African-American poor, whose interests he claims to represent. The UFT is against them, and that’s what counts.

Why Are My Supermarket Workers Threatening to Strike? A Surprising Answer!

 

As we went shopping at our local Giant supermarket — the major chain in the Washington, D.C., area — my wife and I were confronted by a picket line of workers announcing the threat of a strike if their demands were not met. They gave us a two-sided leaflet. One side of it depicts Rosie the Riveter (why this image for supermarket workers?) with a clenched fist, and the banner headline “Standing Strong with Giant and Safeway Workers!” What were they complaining about, as they face upcoming contract negotiations? Better working conditions? Better hours? More vacation time? More time off? The answer: none of the above. The other side has a photo of one worker, a veteran employee who worked at Giant for almost three decades, telling us that the concerns “are of course the wages but more importantly keeping our good healthcare benefits.” Another, a seafood clerk of 15 years, tells us that his issue is “maintaining our health benefits for not just full timers but part timers also.”

Close-up of union logo on artwork.

They were protesting Obamacare! It seems that at first some workers were transferred to part-time from full-time positions a month or so back. I recall talking to someone at the meat department a while ago who informed us that the chain was reducing hours and hiring only part-timers. That’s why he was understaffed and we had to wait quite a while for service.

Now, as negotiations are coming, Giant and Safeway management have announced that all part-timers will lose their regular health insurance, and that only full-time employees will continue to receive it. Other chains, such as Home Depot, did the same a month or two ago. Economics writer Robert J. Samuelson explained that “the ACA may cause some companies to limit hiring or cut hours to escape the law’s requirement to provide health insurance. (The law exempts firms with fewer than 50 full-time workers; full-time is 30 hours a week or more.)”

As one of the picketing workers we spoke to told us, “We want our regular employee health insurance. We don’t want to be forced onto the Obamacare exchanges.” Now I assume that since they can’t get onto the official government website, they do not know whether, as the administration assures everyone, they can keep their own policies. (They can’t, of course, if the government has provided a better policy for them that the user is told they must accept.) These workers, or their union chiefs, have decided in advance that whatever policy the supermarket chain owners want their part-timers to accept, it will not be better.

Why are my Supermarket Workers Threatening to Strike? A Surprising Answer!

 

As we went shopping at our local Giant supermarket — the major chain in the Washington, D.C. area — my wife and I were confronted by a picket line of workers announcing the threat of a strike, if their demands were not met. They gave us a two-sided leaflet. One side of it depicted Rosie the Riveter (why this image for supermarket workers?) with a clenched fist, and the banner headline “Standing Strong with Giant and Safeway Workers!” What were they complaining about, as they face coming up contract negotiations? Better working conditions? Better hours? More vacation time? More time off? The answer: none of the above. The other side has a photo of one worker, a  veteran employee who worked at Giant for almost three decades, telling us that “My concern…are of course the wages but more importantly keeping our good health care benefits.” Another, a seafood clerk of 15 years, tells us that his issue is “maintaining our health benefits for not just full timers but part timers also.”

Close-up of UFCW logo on artwork.

They were protesting Obamacare! It seems that first, some workers were transferred to part-time from full-time positions a month or so back. I recall talking to someone at the meat department, who informed us a while ago that the chain was reducing hours and hiring only part-timers. That’s why he was understaffed, and we had to wait quite a while for service.

Now, as negotiations are coming, Giant and Safeway management announced that all part-timers will lose their regular health insurance, and that only full-time employees will continue to receive it. Other chains, such as Home Depot, did the same a month or two ago. Economics writer Robert J. Samuelson explained that “The ACA may cause some companies to limit hiring or cut hours to escape the law’s requirement to provide health insurance. (The law exempts firms with fewer than 50 full-time workers; full-time is 30 hours a week or more.)

As one of the picketing workers we spoke to told us, “We want our regular employee health insurance. We don’t want to be forced onto the Obamacare exchanges.” Now I assume that since they can’t get onto the official government website, they do not know whether, as the Administration assures everyone, they can keep their own policies, but not if the government has provided a better policy for them that the user is told they must accept. These workers, or their union chiefs, have decided in advance that whatever policy the supermarket chain owners want their part-timers to accept, it will not be better.

Should Conservatives Oppose a Welfare State? Why Charles Krauthammer is Correct and Andy McCarthy is Wrong

Editor’s Note:  PJ Lifestyle seeks to promote dialogue and debate across ideologies, cultures, and religions. This debate in particular — within the conservative movement regarding goals and tactics — is vital. Both Ron Radosh and Andrew C. McCarthy are exemplary exponents of their positions. I would like to encourage more debate and discussion on this subject, inviting others to respond to Krauthammer’s Daily Show appearance, McCarthy’s NRO article, and Ron’s PJM article cross-posted from his blog. I will attempt to weigh in soon. – DMS

***** 

If you want to know how to have a serious and respectful discussion with liberals, look no further than Charles Krauthammer’s lengthy discussion with Jon Stewart that took place last week on The Daily Show. Dr. Krauthammer is, as I am certain all PJM readers know, America’s most well-known and highly regarded spokesman for conservatism. In this three-part extended discussion, he manages to point to the serious flaws in the Obama plan for a federal takeover of the health care system, highlight why it is doomed to fail, and challenge all the liberal shibboleths that Stewart cogently asserts. There is no animosity between the discussants—only serious, well thought-out exchanges of opinion.

It is clear to anyone who watches the exchange that Krauthammer makes the case for a conservative critique of Obamacare, about which, he says in part three of the discussion with Stewart, all conservatives share a consensus. So it is unsettling to say the least to find PJMedia’s Andy McCarthy write on NRO that, like the Republican establishment, Krauthammer “is more sympathetic to Obama’s case for the welfare state than to the Tea Party’s case for limited government and individual liberty.”

McCarthy chastises Krauthammer for going on Stewart’s program, arguing that he and other Republicans “say what they think” so that they might win over a “receptive” liberal audience; hence they endorse a “mature progressivism” that they say is what “conservatives really think.”

Anyone watching Charles Krauthammer’s entire interview will immediately learn that he does not say what he thinks Stewart wants to hear; indeed, he argues strongly against Stewart’s liberal ideological preconceptions, and shows him, and hence his audience, the total folly of a government health program based on taking over one-sixth of the economy.

McCarthy takes particular umbrage to the following passage from the interview, in which Charles Krauthammer says that conservatives today accept,

the great achievements of liberalism — the achievements of the New Deal, of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. The idea that you rescue the elderly and don’t allow the elderly to enter into destitution is a consensual idea [accepted by] conservatives, at least the mainstream of conservatives.

The Flaw in ObamaCare Points to Its Future Failure: It’s Time to Propose Real Alternatives

Some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, have argued that if ObamaCare goes through, an entire group of people will want and like the services offered, thus creating a new dependent culture of people hooked on the supposedly universal and free medical care being offered. Hence, any chances of repealing or reversing it in the future will be doomed.

The events of the previous week have shown that this is an unfounded fear. More likely is that the inherent flaws in ObamCare, now more apparent than ever, will create a groundswell of public opinion demanding either its delay or a movement to scratch it completely and come up with a program that actually works to reform and improve health care in a meaningful way.

We now know, as Stuart Stevens reports in The Daily Beast, that even left-leaning Vermont, the state with the only openly socialist senator, has seen that the roll-out of the health exchanges has been “an unmitigated disaster.” And in the reliably blue state of Maryland, only 1,000 people were able to enroll on the state’s own website, which had as many glitches and software problems as the federal website.

While liberals and leftists argue that the program is solid, and that it is only the software that is bad, Stevens writes that the current problems serve to illustrate ObamaCare’s fatal flaw:

One of the president’s key selling points of the ACA was the promise that if you liked your plan, you could keep it. We’re learning that’s often not the case as Obamacare is implemented across the country. And in Vermont, there has been no pretense of such assurance.

As of January 1, 2014, in Vermont, the ability for individuals or employers with 50 or fewer employees to purchase health insurance from private insurance companies ceases to exist. As for policies already covering those businesses and individuals? Those cease to exist, as well. In other words, in Vermont, a good percentage of its population will have no choice but to buy health insurance through the state exchange.

Now Vermont, like the federal government, is using PR to try to get people to register, as well as trying other methods, such as urging applicants to try to phone in their applications or do it via snail mail. Why not go back to early 20th century methods while we’re living in the 21st century? Perhaps they should also try to revive the Pony Express.

Vermont, Stevens points out, has the highest insurance premiums in the nation. As good liberals, their government has stringent regulations on the insurance industry, thus preventing competition.  ObamaCare will not help Vermont residents, since there are only two companies offering plans on the exchange. And rates are the same for everyone, whatever their age or condition of their health. What this reveals is the essence of socialist engineering to produce equality. To their eyes, it sounds good and moral since everyone pays the same and everyone gets equal treatment. The result: People in their 50s and early 60s — before they are eligible for Medicare — pay the same rates as a young person in his 20s! As Cynthia Cox, a healthcare expert at Kaiser,  explains,  “Younger people will have higher premiums in Vermont than they might if they lived elsewhere, whereas older people might have lower premiums than if they lived elsewhere.”

So if you are such a young person, who earns a starting salary of perhaps $25,000 a year, and you find out that to purchase a health insurance policy on the new exchange will cost you a small fortune, you will, instead, opt to pay the $95 penalty (or 1% of your income, whichever is greater) at tax time. If you become seriously ill before that, you will then enroll and get the medical care you need, assuming that the federal and state enrollment sites are working by then.  This means, however, that when your decision is put together with all the other young people who do the same and do not enroll, the ObamaCare system will not have enough young people registered to pay for the elderly people with serious health conditions who have enrolled. At that point, the system crashes and is not fiscally sustainable. As Stevens puts it, “without a pool of younger, healthier participants, it’s difficult for any insurance plan to survive.

The truth is, as Michael Gerson writes, that ObamaCare “could become an intellectual crisis for modern liberalism.”  The software “glitches” could be fixed — although perhaps not in time for the January enrollment deadline. But even if they are, without enough young people enrolling, the program on its own terms is not likely to work. Its likely failure will show the follies of liberalism and the belief of all those who think socialist type planning can work. Those who really need the coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or those with new, serious medical conditions, will do everything to enroll. Those without these fears will sit back and opt for the small penalty fee. Oh yes, the government could change that to an enormous fee, but imagine the outcry of the young Obama supporters if it tries to do that.

Joe Scarborough is Out to Lunch while his program’s Guest, Bill Ayers, Spews Unchallenged Propaganda

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This morning on MSNBC, Morning Joe did its viewers a major disservice, by reserving its book spot for none other than Bill Ayers, who was there to plug his new memoir Public Enemy: Memoirs of an American Dissident. To make matters even worse, Joe Scarborough, on set for all the other segments, mysteriously disappeared after the break. Ayers was left to be questioned by the non-threatening (not to say Scarborough would have been hostile to Ayers, but as a self-described conservative, he would by nature have offended Ayers’ sensibilities) Mika Brzezinski and journalist Mark Halperin.

The entire segment was structured as a propaganda coup for Ayers. It began with clips from Sarah Palin at 2008 campaign events, including the famous one in which she referred to Barack Obama as “palling around with terrorists.” If you watch the segment from the beginning, nothing Palin said is actually objectionable or wrong, although it was clearly broadcast again to show how unfair the vice-presidential candidate was to poor victim Bill Ayers.

Showing her own ignorance, Brzezinski welcomed him as a “founder of the militant anti-war group the Weather Underground.” In saying this, she from the start allowed Ayers to falsely paint himself for the benefit of his book sales and for the purpose of gaining his TV audience’s confidence.

Anyone at all familiar with Ayers and the WU knows that their goal was to destroy the “Amerikan Empire,” to bring down capitalism and build a revolutionary communist state, and to use force and violence — and bombings of police stations, Army recruitment centers, and, of course, the actual failed attempt to bomb a dance for new recruits at Fort Dix — as part of the necessary actions to destroy capitalism and act in a revolutionary fashion while living “in the belly of the beast.” A simple five-minute Google search could have found scores of articles about what Ayers really believes, including the many I wrote for PJ Media from 2008 on. Or Brzezinski could have picked up Peter Collier and David Horowitz’s classic Destructive Generation and, in one chapter, learned all they needed to know.