........."U GONNA GET REAPED".........OR ARE YOU?Robert Gibbs is speaking as I type. The press conference is mostly on health care. He's reminding the press corps that all of America is not represented by those at the town hall meetings. Fair enough. He's getting some pretty tough questions even from the liberal media attending the press conference. Here's my question:
Sarah Palin came up with the term 'death panel' and that term is not in the bill. She knows that. Everyone knows that. But, the implications of this bill do lead anyone with a mind (Gingrich, in this case) to ask if that could happen and can we trust this not to happen based on the verbage of the bill. HERE is an article which has the type of information which any thinking American might feel tends to feed Gingrich's concerns. A young Democrat representative on FOX was arguing with Laura Ingraham just the other night, very disdainfully, that "families should have 'this talk'" The talk was about elderly people learning about their 'options', that was crystal clear. She was a Democrat representative of this bill.........so? Do you want to "talk" to grandma about how ending her life might be the best way out for everyone? Maybe that's not a DEATH PANEL, but when she says what she did, you have to question what they mean, no? (Of course, the WH must have been thrilled when Palin, of all people they've tried to discredit, came up with DEATH PANEL because it sounds so grim, it sounds so over the top, and they can scoff at it... anybody'd doubt there's a DEATH PANEL, right? It's almost like their glee at Sen. DeMint saying the health care bill was Obama's "waterloo...it'll break him." As big a fan as I've been of DeMint, that didn't help, it only gave the WH the "See, they just want to BREAK OBAMA" whine, right?
So, there is no 'death panel', as Sarah Palin claims. What would make so many Americans feel doubts that the bill might not have those exact words but might still lead to paid advice that people just hang it up because they're old and sick? And, is this DEATH PANEL taking our eye off other really troubling parts of the bill? HERE's a VERY REASONABLE PIECE ON ELDERLY COUNSELING which a friend just emailed me as I was typing this post........Please read it, it's got a lot of good stuff there.
WHY does nobody ask, at those press conferences, "Hey, how would you envision private insurance staying available to 'those who like their plan' when it's not possible?"
Do you think there will be DEATH PANELS though the bill doesn't say that, and do you think we can keep private insurance under Obama's plan? I'd like to
know.Mostly, I'd like to know why the Obama people don't make PERFECTLY CLEAR what they feel are "MISCONCEPTIONS"...like spend an evening on television (the media LOVES YOU, you can do it FREE, Mr. Obama!) reading parts of the bill and clearly showing 'your truth'.....as Lucy would say "...'splain, Ricky".
This is the kind of thing Obama needs NOT DO to 'Sell' his plan: (I received this from a doctor this morning via email):
- Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.
- Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon's decision to remove a child's tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what's right for the patient.
z
53 comments:
Do I think there could be death panels?
Not as such.
I do think health care will be rationed to those most productive, with less expensive conditions, ect.
If someone else with a more serious condition happens to die while waiting for those 'prioritized' for care, well, that'll just be unfortunate, won't it.
I think that is what most people fear from Obama's plan, and his so-called 'counseling' sessions.
Well President Empty Suit did spend a great deal of the Portsmouth town meeting stating that this "death council" idea is utter crap.
But you need to keep your eye on something else. Huffington is posting the details on his (actually Rahm Emmanuel's, Empty Suit doesn't go to the bathroom without Emmanuel's permission) deal with the drug industry. Now the real left knew the fix was in a long time ago and as long as we spend our time on crap like the "death councils" there will be no progress on any cost reform.
Which has been the goal all along so keep paying up because you've been punked. Unless you don't have coverage in which case you'll have to wait to get shafted.
There is no way that I want to see MANDATED consultations for end of life. I want the information to be readibly available, but NOT mandated. These consultations are going to push older people to go the "pain medication" route instead of expensive and maybe ineffective procedures. Don't they think we already might have a HUGE drug problem? Don't they realize this would triple the oxycotin abuse problem or whatever other pain drugs they prescribe?
Some people will go the pain relief route, and that is fine, but don't ram it down their throats!
Ducky have you even seen the data on the people "counseling" Chairman 0 including Emmanuel's brother? On his curve only citizen's from age 2 to 40 would be worth optimum expenditures for treatments!
The part I like is where the bill has spelled out that we will not have the option to buy private insurance as of 2013... the next part stipulates that Congressmen and Senator's will be able to keep their primo health care and don't have to sign on with the gooberment plan! I think they should all have to be the first to sign on!!!
In 1980 the gooberment took over the Mustang Ranch in Nevada because they owed back taxes. Within a matter of months the infamous brothel went out of business! Our gooberment can't even make money selling hookers and liquor, so what is there to make anyone think they are going to run health care any better???
On another note:
Obama lifts ban on HIV positive immigrants!
Now someone please explain how this is going to "drive down the cost of health care in America?
I hope I did the link right... the ole skills appear to be rusty!
I've not been 'Punked', Ducky.. and we're using our insurance right now.
We must have reform and I believe it can be done if everyone slows down and puts the country first instead of the party they represent.
If anything, this whole thing's shown the contempt our 'representatives' have and that's got to stop.
Brooke...I think you're right...you really describe the situation well.
In 1980 the gooberment took over the Mustang Ranch in Nevada because they owed back taxes. Within a matter of months the infamous brothel went out of business!
-------------------------
So what, "in house prostitution" is legal in Rhode Island and it's doing boffo business.
Everything's better in New England. You need to leave flyover country once in a while.
ObamaCare is to health reform what bank bailouts are to financial system reform, which is to say it is the opposite of what its name implies.
The right-wingers who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they've been screwed by them on financial system "reform." ............
This is not about civil discourse. This is about propaganda. The Obama administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership have sold out health care reform for the tainted coin of the medical-industrial industry, and are holding, or trying to hold, these meetings around the country to promote legislation that has essentially been written for them by that industry--legislation that will force everyone to pay for insurance as offered, and priced, by the private insurance industry. What a deal for those companies--a captive market of 300 million people!
BEND OVER AMERICA !!!
What strikes me most about Hoosiers rants is that she really hates the government, most oppressive, inefficient entity she can think of.
But she loves the government run military. They are incredibly efficient and only do G-d's work.
Such a strange pathology.
Hey, Z. I still want to contribute to your blog. Let me know how to do that. Do I e-mail a post to you? Do I get a password? How do you want to handle it.
Here's a new one making the rounds. Really, we have lost our minds:
The Attack on ObamaCare: Gay Conspiracy Edition
Reader JP just alerted me to an email blast from a group called "The Pray In Jesus Name Project." It suggests that ObamaCare will not only pull the plug on grandma, but also result in a gay and transgendered takeover of the entire health care system. Among the bogus claims in the group's petition:
Your tax-dollars will pay for preferential hiring of homosexual hospital administrators, who distribute $50,000 grants to gender-confused activists for unneeded elective surgery to mutilate their own genitals, (and force Christian doctors to perform it.)
The group attempts to back this up by citing drafts of the House and Senate bills that make fleeting references to gender and sexual orientation, but which have nothing to do with mandated free sex-change operations. (PolitiFact, The St. Petersberg Times fact-checking service, does a great job debunking these allegations, many of which were put forth by Liberty Counsel--a group affiliated with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.)
As for the gay takeover of hospitals? The section of the Senate bill that's cited--requiring the "participation in the institutions' programs of individuals and groups from ...different genders and sexual orientations"--actually refers to government grants awarded to students doing research in mental and behavioral health. I suppose that such a dangerously diverse group of students could decide that they, the gay mafia, should run the nation's hospitals,whose names will be "changed from 'St. Luke's Memorial' to the 'Obama Government' hospital" when atheists strip all Christian icons from the buildings, as the email predicts. But, then again, that's absolutely crazy.
Ducky, You want to explain your version of this? "participation in the institutions' programs of individuals and groups from ...different genders and sexual orientations"--actually refers to government grants awarded to students doing research in mental and behavioral health"
How does anything about gender or sex orientation have anything to do with what you say it refers to?
And, what plan would you envision working? Germany is begging their people to buy private insurance because they can't afford it anymore (and never paid one-payer anyway, by the way, as the media likes to tout FREE GERMAN HEALTH CARE..that's always been a downright agenda-driven mischaracterization) and France, too, charges on TOP of their socialized plans.....)
What do you see working here?
The concept of a 'death panel' goes far beyond the notion that an end of live counseling session may morph into a panel which determines when life should end. (And by the way, I reject the idea that the possibility of a 'death panel' is absurd, after all, liberals already feel comfortable deciding for the rest of us when life begins, why not when it ends.)
Despite the insistence that there will be no 'rationed care', once the public option puts all the insurance companies out of business and forces everyone into the public plan, rationed care will be inevitable.
The 'death panel' will be the bureaucracy making life and death decisions in determining who gets care and who does not. We have seen this in Canada, Great Britain, and even in Oregon.
Da Patriot...your comment makes such good sense. I really thank you for this input.
I believe you're thinking along Gingrich's lines (see link)...we don't KNOW we can TRUST government.....why SHOULD WE?
And, yes, look at the British System and, right, even OREGON. Dreadful.
It IS inevitable and I WISH good conservative minds like yours were SPEAKING UP ON THE MEDIA.
But, of course, our media keeps these things hushed up.
THE BIGGEST LIE TO DATE from the obama WH is "You can keep your private insurance"..yes, for about a year, by which time Blue Shield, for example, will have gone totally BROKE.
Me on the death panel: You know, Nan, you're getting a little long in the tooth there babe, I'm thinking that your application for a tenth face lift is ...how can I say it...wasteful. In fact Nan, perhaps this would be a good time to, well...just end it all.
Nancy: You mean the plastic surgeries?
Me on the death panel: Actually, I meant end it all - as in committ suicide. Let's face it Nan, you've pretty much out lived your usefulness as Speaker...and some of your comments are, again, how can I say it...a smidgeon off the charts. Nazis? Puhleeeze!
Nancy: But I don't want to die!
Me on the death panel: Tough toenails babe...Next case!
I saw parts of the news conference. Gibbs is about as clueless as they come. But to his credit, he is well adept on how to use both sides of his mouth (like his boss and the veep).
The underlying problem with any regulation such as government healthcare is, one size fits all.
There's no way a plan can be written on a universal scale such as this regarding real human beings from different backgrounds, beliefs, values and family dynamics, and be viable and just.
More importantly, it can't take into account human suffering and compassion.
So, it comes down to the cold, unfeeling, academic analyses of some professor's intellectual exercise and cost effectiveness.
There are individuals whose will to live is so strong as to amaze the experts.
There are others who, upon hearing a troubling prognosis, give up because they believe it's hopeless.
How can a regulation deal with that? It can't, because one size does not fit all, except in the law or cold words found in a rule written on a page for a bureaucrat to enforce.
This is why our lives and our loved ones lives do not belong to anyone but us and those we love and care for.
I don't want to be relieved of the burden of dealing with a loved one's sickness or suffering. My loved ones deserve my involvement and my counsel if they wish it and I, theirs, and we don't need some bureaucratic "expert" to tell us what's best for us.
Let that expert tell that to his own family, and explain his academic studies and how "sensible and pragmatic" they are. For the good of overall society of course.
No thanks Mr. Obama, I'll keep my freedom if you don't mind.
Pris
Damnn....them aputations ain't what they used to be.....How many legs does one have to hack off before onecan afford a house on Mecca's Vineyard with the Kennedy Clan?
I still can't believe the good people of Portsmouth, across the river from where I lived for my four years of high school, could have kissed his bum any harder....
Death (EoL) panels are now O-U-T of the bipartisan bill, but the Rationing Board isn't... after all, SOMEBODY has to decide who is, and who isn't, going to get the free Viagra.
They quell misconceptions by trying to create new ones.
Wow, do what you think is a pretty darned good post and your amazing readers will comment in ways far beyond your talents!! :-)
Thanks for ALL your input...great stuff.
Yes, we need clarity and we need sanity and we need to be relied upon by 'our government' to make our OWN good decisions..and PAY FOR THEM.
And, if people need help, they need to get it.....let's work on THAT, not complete OVERHAUL which SHOULD be a YEAR in the planning!!
why's that SO hard to understand?
It's clear that to keep such a system afloat you have to contain costs - raise taxes (a lot!), do less, or pay less (likely all three).
"Death panel" crystallizes the thinking on the path this opens. Many well meaning ones have opened Pandora's box in their ignorance. (Some -- like Margaret Sanger family planning advocate, and admirer or Hitler's eugenics before millions were murdered -- aren't so ignorant at the front end.) That's about as charitable as I'll go on this one.
I can picture the scene now:
Administrator: "we're over-budget on care for patient Jones. Get her into 'counseling' now!"
Counselor: "Well, Mrs. Jones, you don't have many options .... but nursey here can take all that burden off your family."
Once the structure's in place does it matter what "they" intended. Ask Hubert Humphrey about the MBE/WBE quota bill.
In an interview Tuesday, Dr. [Ezekiel] Emanuel said his 1996 piece was "attempting to analyze different philosophical trends," not expressing his own views. Dr. Emanuel noted that he was a well-known opponent of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
"I'm an oncologist who has cared for scores, if not hundreds, of dying patients," he said. "For 25 years, I've been a researcher, one of the first to go into the field of end-of-life care with the goal of improving it....It's a perversion of everything I've done to take one or two quotes completely out of context, without any of the qualifiers I've added, and distort them."
— Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2009
The cultivated hysteria over so-called death panels is a red herring. The optional offer of expert information on end-of-life situations, which may be difficult for many people to obtain, is being morphed by unprincipled opponents of health care into the threat of mandatory government death sentences. It cynically plays on the emotions and fears of impressionable people, impelling many to circulate viral e-mails or write panicky screeds on the blogs. This is the unhealthy nature of health care debate in America today.
The cultivated hysteria over so-called death panels is a red herring. The optional offer of expert information on end-of-life situations, which may be difficult for many people to obtain, is being morphed by unprincipled opponents of health care into the threat of mandatory government death sentences.
Yes yes. You can either just die in peace, or you can have a government-comforted "end-of-life."
It cynically plays on the emotions and fears of impressionable people, impelling many to circulate viral e-mails or write panicky screeds on the blogs. This is the unhealthy nature of health care debate in America today.
What's there to debate about health care? If the government is deciding who gets health care and how much they get, then government will come up with metrics to base those "cost effective" decisions on. They will ration health care. "End-of-life" will come after "end-of-usefulness" as it always does when government is centrally planning people's health decisions. Then we're back to the leftist quest to euthanize the mentally disabled, physically handicapped, and eventually those suspected of being a carrier of Jewishness.
But she loves the government run military. They are incredibly efficient and only do G-d's work.
Ducky, just for your information, the United States Military is made up of US Citizen's who have signed a blank check to our Government good for any sacrifice made, up to giving their lives, in DEFENSE of our country, it's citizens, and the Constitution of the United States! As I see it, I am alive and living in a nation where I am free (until Obama gets done promoting his agenda!) because America may well produce nuts like you, but they have never been short of citizens who have served and sacrificed to defend our freedom and the freedoms of other nations. If my undying gratitude offends you, oh well, so be it. I am and always will be proud to stand in support of our troops and it has nothing to do with God. It has to do with love of country and those who are the guardians of our freedoms.
As far as "flyover country"... I prefer to visit my friends in more down to earth states where they don't consume da koolaid by the bucket and can still think critically. When I was in Socialist Taxachuttes, I was NOT impressed.
You are right though. I have never seen anything to convince me that massive government; spending us into oblivion and inefficient bureaucracies that take a simple task and complicate it x 100 was effective. So no, I have no admiration for the government that has existed to serve special interests and agendas for at least the last 40 years... and that includes Democrat and Republican.
No good ever comes from "career politicians".
Republicans asked Democrats to add the words "voluntary" to the Advanced Planning portion of the bill. They refused.
The thing is, the wording is so vague, Death Panels are possible, or not possible - but we have no guarantee that the mandatory "couseling" will not do this. Why would we even think about trusting them, especially when Ezekiel Emanuel is one of the spokesmen?
The Bill also says that many people may be classified as a "practioner." The network this legislation sets up is huge - and will mean big, big bucks to many. In the end, it will likely not be anyone you consider to be a "practioner" that counsels you. The breadth of the paperwork will be astounding. We will have flunkies counseling us.
The bottom-line in my opinion, is the government has no business talking about the end of my life. I don't care how much it costs. It is my business, and the business of my family.
Yes, medicare is a government program. I acknowledge that, but it is NOT this program. We know what it does, and what it does not do.
It is not Medicare that is bringing the country to it's financial knees. It is Medicaid - because so many people do not work and do not care for their children.
The cultivated hysteria over so-called death panels is a red herring. The optional offer of expert information on end-of-life situations, which may be difficult for many people to obtain, is being morphed by unprincipled opponents of health care into the threat of mandatory government death sentences.
Yes yes. You can either just die in peace, or you can have a government-comforted "end-of-life."
Apparently, few like or understand preparing in advance for end of life, so it is being removed from the Senate bill. The provision for optional end-of-life counseling was introduced in the Senate (as an amendment that was adopted on July 7 ) by a Republican----Senator Johnny Isakson, of Georgia----who says the claim that it has anything to do with euthanasia is "nuts". His amendment, he says, puts "the authority in the individual rather than the government." The provision is being dropped, but ideological opponents of Obama will continue to employ it to mobilize angry protesters to achieve what they want, t.e., to weaken the president.
It cynically plays on the emotions and fears of impressionable people, impelling many to circulate viral e-mails or write panicky screeds on the blogs. This is the unhealthy nature of health care debate in America today.
What's there to debate about health care?
Your oversimplification of the debate.
If the government is deciding who gets health care and how much they get, then government will come up with metrics to base those "cost effective" decisions on. They will ration health care. "End-of-life" will come after "end-of-usefulness" as it always does when government is centrally planning people's health decisions. Then we're back to the leftist quest to euthanize the mentally disabled, physically handicapped, and eventually those suspected of being a carrier of Jewishness.
The above screed, with its mishmash of misinformation and misleading conjecture, exemplifies what I alluded to. Medicare is a successful government-run program without rationing and euthanasia (but since it is what the right calls a socialist program, the right presumably will want to end it). Notwithstanding the emotionally appealing rhetoric of Glen Beck et al., and rightwingers shamelessly making sinister things up----there is not in America a "leftist quest to euthanize the mentally disabled, physically handicapped, and eventually those suspected of being a carrier of Jewishness". People on the left want to provide affordable, quality health care to all Americans, even if expenses for some must be subsidized. Historically, it is the right that has been intolerant of differences and assertions of universal equality, insisting that everyone must pull his weight in society (to put it as Teddy Roosevelt did). Rightwingers pursue these goals with a vehemence that they justify by casting their opponents as part of a demonic conspiracy, thereby acting much like the fascists in Europe in the last century, whom they strive tendentiously to portray as leftists, as if influential traditional conservatives did not back giving dictatorial power to fascists in both Italy and Germany.
PSI Bond -- so wrong on so many points.
What's "wrong" with the health care debate started with ham-fisted one-party government trying to pull a fast one, without input or debate. No time to even read the bill - it was so urrrrrgent, don't ya know. Kinda makes a thoughtful person step back and start asking questions.
"Death panels" -- dismissing fact-based apprehensions as "cultivated hysteria." Nothing "optional" about the "offer" of information, PB -- it was MANDATORY. Now what is it about the heinous possibilities of forced participation you don't get, or are you ready to dutifully sew on your yellow star?
(And Ducky's got a point here - it makes a comfy distraction from important issues this "transparent" White House is hiding - like its deals with the drug and hospital industries.)
and my favorite PSI Bond red herring:
Who has "cynically played on the emotions of impressionable people?" Sounds like the Agitator-in-Chief, to me. The ONE who made a career of stirring up anger, Saul Alinsky fashion, until the sore spots were so raw people cried for "change."
He's changed addresses, but not spots.
It's a healthy sign to see the blowback for the stream of lies he's told to play on the emotions of the impressionable. (Or does anyone really think a GP morphs into a surgeon so he can amputate a foot for $50,000 - a 5,000% exaggeration, but one cleverly designed to appeal to the politics of envy. Same spots as in Chicago.)
And this new whopper: seems the senator who introduced this tripwire clause never "intended" it for euthanasia. Well, back to my comment on Senator Humphrey and the 1964 civil rights act - never intended quotas (I understand he never ate the paper the bill was written on, either, as promised.)
Once the structure is there, your "intentions" don't amount to spit.
Gads - PSI Bond continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.
"Medicare is a "successful" government-run program" only because so many of us outside the government option pay higher prices to support its often pitiful reimbursement schedule.
After an initial flourish of pigs at the trough in the 60's, it's been on life support. Many doctors only take medicare patients because they get more from the rest of us. You can call that charity, but NOT a successful government-run program.
Open your eyes, PB: we don't have to cast our opponents as demonic conspiratorial fascists. Not when so many of them are quite capable of doing that all by themselves.
well done, Deborah, it's nice to see such true, eloquent answers to the leftwing pablum
What's there to debate about health care?
Your oversimplification of the debate.
I regret to inform you, PsiBond, that freedom of speech has not yet been outlawed by the Left in America. And while my ample notice to you that all leftists are in fact imbeciles should have prepared you for the fact that exiting your comfort zone and echo chamber of leftist talking points to engage with non-leftists would force you to encounter intelligent people, I acknowledge that you too have the right to use your freedom of speech to "debate" how others choose to debate (or not debate) Obama's health care proposals.
I would be remiss in not informing you that I don't give a shit if you think I "oversimplify" my agreement with nearly 60% of the American people that don't want socialized health care. The 32% that do and the 8% still wondering why cottage cheese has an expiration date are not going to change my mind. Shove socialized health care proposals up your ass.
PSI Bond -- so wrong on so many points
Yes, indeed you are, Deborah on the Bayside.
What's "wrong" with the health care debate started with ham-fisted one-party government trying to pull a fast one, without input or debate. No time to even read the bill - it was so urrrrrgent, don't ya know. Kinda makes a thoughtful person step back and start asking questions.
It would certainly make a conspiracy-minded person ask questions. But the reason for the haste is clear enough. It was an attempt to get something done before the president's political capital inevitably eroded, on an important issue that has been hamstrung for forty years by Republicans. But I think the haste was a miscalculation, not just because it gave anti-health-care-reform activists the opportunity to spin conspiracies like the death panels, but because a comprehensive overhaul, properly done, requires a lot of careful fresh thinking and calm and civil public debate.
"Death panels" -- dismissing fact-based apprehensions as "cultivated hysteria." Nothing "optional" about the "offer" of information, PB -- it was MANDATORY. Now what is it about the heinous possibilities of forced participation you don't get, or are you ready to dutifully sew on your yellow star?
If one does not want to prepare oneself for the end of life, one can refuse to do so. There's no need for sinister inferences of anti-Semitism.
(And Ducky's got a point here - it makes a comfy distraction from important issues this "transparent" White House is hiding - like its deals with the drug and hospital industries.)
Any finalized agreements with medical interest groups will have to made public law and thus become transparent.
and my favorite PSI Bond red herring:
Dishing out more red herrings won't make your argument more digestible.
Who has "cynically played on the emotions of impressionable people?" Sounds like the Agitator-in-Chief, to me. The ONE who made a career of stirring up anger, Saul Alinsky fashion, until the sore spots were so raw people cried for "change."
In other words, you claim that the need for change was manufactured; the health care system is fine as it is. Although liberals are not, rightwingers may be comfortable with the fact of uninsured Americans, many of whom cannot obtain insurance because of pre-existing conditions or getting sick or laid off.
He's changed addresses, but not spots.
He changed his address because the majority of Americans elected him, but he's still black and born in Hawaii, which, by the way, is beautiful (Hawaii and being black).
It's a healthy sign to see the blowback for the stream of lies he's told to play on the emotions of the impressionable. (Or does anyone really think a GP morphs into a surgeon so he can amputate a foot for $50,000 - a 5,000% exaggeration, but one cleverly designed to appeal to the politics of envy. Same spots as in Chicago.)
It's an unhealthy sign to see impressionable people emotionally manipulated and mobilized by the lies from the right, whose avowed agenda is to weaken the president.
And this new whopper: seems the senator who introduced this tripwire clause never "intended" it for euthanasia. Well, back to my comment on Senator Humphrey and the 1964 civil rights act - never intended quotas (I understand he never ate the paper the bill was written on, either, as promised.)
The fact is responsible people want to make known their wishes in the event of their future incapacitation, and many more would do so if given the opportunity. The Republican senator responsible for the clause's introduction says such an interpretation as has been wildly used to cultivate hysteria is "nuts". There is no legislation that says living wills or other end-of-life options is mandatory. It cannot be morphed into death sentences for the elderly without new legislation that no one would support and that no president would sign. The same is true in the case of civil rights: legislation is required to put into effect and justify quotas and affirmative action. We are a nation of laws. That's how it works in America, although many rightwingers have shown little faith in the American system.
Once the structure is there, your "intentions" don't amount to spit.
The president, as commander-in-chief, can command the army to impose end of life on his opponents, thereby swiftly cutting health care costs for the country. The structure is there. It was not the intention of the Founders, but that doesn't mean spit, right? Perhaps we should give direct control of the armed forces to the righteously angry citizenry, bypassing a president that rightwingers don't trust. It's easy to conjure up these bizarre scenarios when there is no compunction to keep it real.
Deborah on the Bayside: Gads - PSI Bond continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.
Golly geez, Deborah, you continue to rely on hackneyed rhetorical phrases to express yourself.
"Medicare is a "successful" government-run program" only because so many of us outside the government option pay higher prices to support its often pitiful reimbursement schedule. After an initial flourish of pigs at the trough in the 60's, it's been on life support. Many doctors only take medicare patients because they get more from the rest of us. You can call that charity, but NOT a successful government-run program.
Money and profit are not the only metrics of success for humanitarian programs. It is a successful program in the sense that it has and continues to provide millions with good health care who otherwise could not afford it and may have died without it. It's worth noting that the great physicist Stephen Hawking said recently that he would not be alive today without the quality care he received from the British National Health Service. He said that in response to an accusation by opponents of health care reform that he would have been killed in a government health care system.
Open your eyes, PB: we don't have to cast our opponents as demonic conspiratorial fascists. Not when so many of them are quite capable of doing that all by themselves.
When you open your eyes, Deborah on the Bayside, it should be clear that your opponents are not saying they are "demonic conspiratorial fascists". Hence it takes rightwingers with a quasi-religious faith that they are on the side of Absolute Truth to promote that claim, and they do so energetically in the media, in columns, in bestselling books, and in the blogosphere.
beamish: I would be remiss in not informing you that I don't give a shit if you think I "oversimplify" my agreement with nearly 60% of the American people that don't want socialized health care.
You make things up and you oversimplify, beamish, not in your agreement with shifting poll numbers, but in your characterization of the debate.
Shove socialized health care proposals up your ass.
Elegantly put, beamish. I support your right to say it, even though it shows that intelligent debate with people who don't share your ideas is outside your personal comfort zone.
In other words, you claim that the need for change was manufactured; the health care system is fine as it is. Although liberals are not, rightwingers may be comfortable with the fact of uninsured Americans, many of whom cannot obtain insurance because of pre-existing conditions or getting sick or laid off.
Put your money where your mouth is. You want to provide socialized health care solutions to uninsured / uninsurable Americans, cut your paycheck on it. It's awful easy to be generous with someone else's money, isn't it?
I would be remiss in not informing you that I don't give a shit if you think I "oversimplify" my agreement with nearly 60% of the American people that don't want socialized health care.
You make things up and you oversimplify, beamish, not in your agreement with shifting poll numbers, but in your characterization of the debate.
I didn't make up President Staplegun's campaigning for single-payer health care reform, I didn't make up left-wing activists praising Obama's health care proposals as a path to single-payer and the elimination of private and employer-based health coverage, and I'm not oversimplifying that single-payer health coverage is precisely the socialized health care regime that nearly 60% of Americans resoundingly reject.
Shove socialized health care proposals up your ass.
Elegantly put, beamish. I support your right to say it, even though it shows that intelligent debate with people who don't share your ideas is outside your personal comfort zone.
I'm extremely comfortable with intelligent debate with people who don't share my ideas. I do tend to reject the existence of things for which no empirical evidence can be provided, such as four-sided triangles and intelligent leftists.
In other words, you claim that the need for change was manufactured; the health care system is fine as it is. Although liberals are not, rightwingers may be comfortable with the fact of uninsured Americans, many of whom cannot obtain insurance because of pre-existing conditions or getting sick or laid off.
Put your money where your mouth is. You want to provide socialized health care solutions to uninsured / uninsurable Americans, cut your paycheck on it. It's awful easy to be generous with someone else's money, isn't it?
It is not someone else's money. It's our money, beamish. It should be used for whatever the American electorate backs. As in the example of Stephen Hawking, it benefits all of us. And, indirectly, the economy.
beamish: I would be remiss in not informing you that I don't give a shit if you think I "oversimplify" my agreement with nearly 60% of the American people that don't want socialized health care.
You make things up and you oversimplify, beamish, not in your agreement with shifting poll numbers, but in your characterization of the debate.
I didn't make up President Staplegun's campaigning for single-payer health care reform, I didn't make up left-wing activists praising Obama's health care proposals as a path to single-payer and the elimination of private and employer-based health coverage, and I'm not oversimplifying that single-payer health coverage is precisely the socialized health care regime that nearly 60% of Americans resoundingly reject.
Those unsubstantiated allegations were not in your previous post.
I was referring to your allegation that there is in America a "leftist quest to euthanize the mentally disabled, physically handicapped, and eventually those suspected of being a carrier of Jewishness". That is false.
Shove socialized health care proposals up your ass.
Elegantly put, beamish. I support your right to say it, even though it shows that intelligent debate with people who don't share your ideas is outside your personal comfort zone.
I'm extremely comfortable with intelligent debate with people who don't share my ideas.
Just as long as they are not leftists, with whom you reject a priori.the possibility of intelligent debate.
I do tend to reject the existence of things for which no empirical evidence can be provided, such as four-sided triangles and intelligent leftists [and God?].
As a matter of definition from geometric postulates,four-sided triangles do not exist, but intelligent leftists can only be said not to exist as a matter of arbitrary personal judgment, for there is no empirical scientific evidence that they do not exist.
What you mean is that you reject the existence of things for which no empirical evidence can be provided that you are willing to accept. Unsurprisingly, that indicates that you, as a rightwinger, are highly tolerant of rightwingers, that your tolerance is restricted to them. Which raises the interesting question, "Why do you repeatedly engage leftists in debate?"
Z: well done, Deborah, it's nice to see such true, eloquent answers to the leftwing pablum
C'mon, Z. How about some recognition for beamish's eloquence:
I would be remiss in not informing you that I don't give a shit if you think I "oversimplify" .....
Shove socialized health care proposals up your ass.
How would it have looked if the British Health Care System had let Hawkings die as they've let so many others? Does anybody REALLY think they'd put Hawkings on a "8 months for a hip replacement" list if he needed one?
As for Beamish's line about shoving socialized health care up your bum? I'm with him.
I know most of us bloggers do feel that something needs to be fixed, though the media acts as if the Democrats are the ones with HEARTS (as if this system will show heart?) and the Republicans simply don't give a damn about the sick. Typical media.
Let's fix torte reform FIRST. Let's fix Medicare FIRST...take care of AMERICANS first. STOP the freebies to illegals so maybe they'll get the hint and go back home instead of mooching on us. They've CLOSED hospitals around here because the illegals took such advantage but thinking conservatives are supposed to not care about that and just keep digging a larger hole?
HOw laughable.
Good luck arguing with Deborah and Beamish, psi bond. It's good to see the interaction and their exquisite revelation of how the leftwinger mind works. Even I thought you'd understand how bad this program is for America but you keep watching Maddow.
PSI Bond’s postulations appear to be based in the belief that only government can do it. There are things a government can and should do – are mandated to do. Having the President unleash the army to kill citizens – ahem – isn’t actually one of them, PB.
Your assertion that being against a ghastly boondoggle means you’re perfectly happy with the status quo is pretty weak. I doubt you actually believe it yourself. But, hey, throw it out there and see if it sticks.
“Demonic conspiracy … acting much like fascists.” Your words, actually. While it’s true there’s quite a bunch acting like fascists, and I’ll certainly hold up a mirror to them, I hadn’t thought about it being a demonic conspiracy. That would be your contribution.
Yes, responsible people can and do make their wishes known. “Many more would do so given the opportunity.” I see. So you mean somebody is preventing them from learning this readily available information now? They’re not allowed to find out? But when THE ONE waves his magic wand, not only will the seas stop rising, but the scales shall be removed from their eyes, and that which restraineth shall restrain no more? Enlightenment, fraternity, Robespiere (oops, wrong century), Reid’s prayer!
PB’s mis-caricaturization of Medicare as “successful” implied it is a model for the Obama package to follow. Now, I’ve seen this concept tested on a five-year old who got it right off – so this shouldn’t be too hard. When 90% pays more so 10% percent can pay less (often less than cost), and you change rules to have the 90% pay the same non-living wage as the 10%, you run out of other peoples’ money. Rather quickly. Demand zooms. Ability to supply tanks. (Okay, everybody else – please stop laughing so PB can think for a moment. I can tell it’s hard.)
No, true compassion is getting the lawyers (still needed) on a short leash, not destroying an exemplary level of health care in a fit of emotional blindness, and not saddling our grandchildren with yet another well-intentioned mess to clean up.
We have serious issues in paying for health care. Anyone who knows me knows I've been all over that one for decades. When tort reform is pointedly left off the table and the talk centers on fabrications and wild exaggerations by the President, who is it that’s not serious?
PB is right here. It is “an unhealthy sign to see impressionable people emotionally manipulated and mobilized by [these] lies.” But gerrymandering the discussion to how the president is black and born in Hawaii isn’t serious either.
Ducky -- many good insights. You sure hit it out of the park here: the pols are trying as hard as they can to propagandize a sellout.
Folks have caught on. And the pols don’t like that when they’re trying to hoodwink ya. You can tell by the squealing. An old timer I knew used to say “when you go into the barn of a dark night with a lantern the rats run for cover. But the birds start to sing.”
They’re singin’ and the pols can’t stand the music.
Deborah: "No, true compassion is getting the lawyers (still needed) on a short leash, not destroying an exemplary level of health care in a fit of emotional blindness, and not saddling our grandchildren with yet another well-intentioned mess to clean up."
I should be coming to YOUR house with garden fresh figs, not the other way around! (heh)
Super commentary.......
PsiBond,
I've not made any unsubstantiated allegations about Obama's health care proposals or the "path to single-payer" intended by them.
Do finish mourning Michael Jackson and try to catch up. There's a video on my blog specifically documenting leftist cheer that Obama's plan leads to single-payer.
PSI Bond’s postulations appear to be based in the belief that only government can do it
Deborah on the Bayside’s need to delude herself with typical rightwing spin seems to motivate her presumptuous misrepresentations of what I believe. As most people understand, only government can curb the abuses to which business is prone, when businesses are unwilling or unable to do it.
There are things a government can and should do – are mandated to do.
The first part of that is an inarguable tautology. The second clause is true in a constitutional form of governance. That is to say, you are presenting as supposed common sense a conjunction of tautology and implied conditional proposition, which is not a logical amalgam.
Having the President unleash the army to kill citizens – ahem – isn’t actually one of them, PB.
That is my point, Deborah on the Bayside. Despite its usefulness for fearmongering in the health care debate, neither is ordering the deaths of senior citizens one of them.
Your assertion that being against a ghastly boondoggle means you’re perfectly happy with the status quo is pretty weak. I doubt you actually believe it yourself.
Your assumption that I said that is pretty untrue. But, to block all proposals to expand access to health care is in effect to preserve the status quo for our nation’s seriously ailing health care system. We’ve created a system that leaves millions of our fellow citizens out in the cold. Beyond the issue of coverage, however, the United States also performs below other countries in matters of cost, quality, and choice. Most Americans can remember when our politicians used to boast¾¾and we used to believe¾¾that the U.S. had the finest health care system in the world. Today, any politician who attempted to make that claim¾¾it was last heard in a State of the Union address in 2002¾¾would most likely be ridiculed. With the exception of most rightwing extremists, Americans generally recognize now that our nation’s health care system has become excessively expensive, ineffective, and unjust. Among the world’s developed nations, the U.S. stands at or near the bottom in most important rankings of access to and quality of medical care. In 2000, when a Harvard Medical School professor developed a complicated formula to rate the quality and fairness of health care systems, the richest nation on earth ranked thirty-seventh. The one area in which the U.S. leads the world is in spending.
Health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, in 2005, was 15.3% in the U.S. In Germany, it was 10.7%. In France, it was 11.1%. In the U.K., 8.3%. In Canada, 9.8%. In Japan, 8.0%. At the same time, infant mortality, expressed as number of deaths per 1000 births, was 7.0 in the U.S. In Germany, it was 4.2. In France, 4.1. In Canada, 5.4. In Japan, 3.0. In 2006, the Commonwealth Fund, a private research group, ranked countries according to avoidable mortality¾¾i.e., with respect to how many people who contracted a potentially fatal but treatable medical condition were treated successfully and survived. France ranked first. Japan was second. Spain was third. Canada was seventh. The U.S. was fifteenth.
But, hey, throw it out there and see if it sticks.
Put out all the disingenuous distortions you please. It will fool a lot of impressionable rightwingers.
“Demonic conspiracy … acting much like fascists.” Your words, actually.
The way you reproduce my words suggests both clauses refer to the same people. They do not. The first phrase referred to liberals as they are characterized by many rightwingers.The second referred to rightwingers, as characterized by their behavior.
Continued
While it’s true there’s quite a bunch acting like fascists, and I’ll certainly hold up a mirror to them,
Yes, a mirror should be held up to raucous people shouting down congressmen and preventing them from speaking, and to those who burn senators in effigy and spray their nameplates with swastikas. And to those bringing loaded guns to town hall meetings. And by trying to intimidate elected representatives by claiming that God is going to send them to Hell (as one of them told Arlen Specter).
I hadn’t thought about it being a demonic conspiracy. That would be your contribution.
No. it doesn’t come from me. It comes from rightwingers demonizing liberals. I am just taking notice of that behavior.
Yes, responsible people can and do make their wishes known. “Many more would do so given the opportunity.” I see. So you mean somebody is preventing them from learning this readily available information now? They’re not allowed to find out? But when THE ONE waves his magic wand, not only will the seas stop rising, but the scales shall be removed from their eyes, and that which restraineth shall restrain no more? Enlightenment, fraternity, Robespiere (oops, wrong century), Reid’s prayer!
No, I don’t mean someone is preventing them. Often ignorance of information is a lack of awareness of its availability and how to obtain it. Rightwingers may choose to make fun of it, but dissemination of information to the public is an important function. Except in extremists’ bizarre scenarios, It does not strip persons of the choice to accept or reject it.
PB’s mis-caricaturization of Medicare as “successful” implied it is a model for the Obama package to follow. Now, I’ve seen this concept tested on a five-year old who got it right off – so this shouldn’t be too hard. When 90% pays more so 10% percent can pay less (often less than cost), and you change rules to have the 90% pay the same non-living wage as the 10%, you run out of other peoples’ money. Rather quickly. Demand zooms. Ability to supply tanks.
Deborah on the Bayside’s mischaracterization of my usage of “successful” should be obvious. Even a five-year-old should sense that you are talking about something different. I do not characterize success for humanitarian programs in the fiscal sense that you prefer. I do not characterize it in terms of the financing plan by which it was established more than forty years ago. The socialist-style medical care provided by the Veterans Administration, which uses government hospitals and government doctors, is also funded with public tax funds. But most rightwingers don’t call for its dismantling or gutting. Many Americans would not be alive today were it not for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program or VA care. Yet, about that success, too many rightwingers, who nonetheless assiduously cultivate the fears of pulling the plug on grandma, don’t seem to give a damn.
(Okay, everybody else – please stop laughing so PB can think for a moment. I can tell it’s hard.)
Birds of a feather cackle together.
No, true compassion is getting the lawyers (still needed) on a short leash, not destroying an exemplary level of health care in a fit of emotional blindness, and not saddling our grandchildren with yet another well-intentioned mess to clean up.
Lawyers on a short leash? You appear to think only government can do it. The same or better result may be attainable by encouraging bar associations to adopt socially responsible standards in this area of legal practice.
No, although comprehensive tort reform is certainly necessary with respect to medical malpractice suits to bring down medical costs in general, lawyers are still needed where there are cases of grievous malpractice. Too many Americans are lost because of shoddy medical practices that should not be protected. Each year over 1.7 million Americans will get a drug-resistant infection from a hospital and 100,000 of them will die. In the United States, more people die from hospital infections than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Thousands of other victims of hospital infections escape death but are left with serious life altering injuries including paralysis. Disturbingly, most of these infections can be prevented through the implementation of stricter sanitary and bacterial testing procedures.
We have serious issues in paying for health care. Anyone who knows me knows I've been all over that one for decades. When tort reform is pointedly left off the table and the talk centers on fabrications and wild exaggerations by the President, who is it that’s not serious?
Blatant self-serving distortion of what I say is not a sign of seriousness on your part.
PB is right here. It is “an unhealthy sign to see impressionable people emotionally manipulated and mobilized by [these] lies.
If you agree, Deborah on the Bayside, that I’m correct, quote me without convenient distortion. I said: “It's an unhealthy sign to see impressionable people emotionally manipulated and mobilized by the lies from the right, whose avowed agenda is to weaken the president.”
But gerrymandering the discussion to how the president is black and born in Hawaii. isn’t serious either.
I was not “gerrymandering” anything here but responding to your apparently serious remark about the inability of the president to change his spots. This remark that you miss the point of is unrelated to my remark about impressionable people, with which you arbitrarily conflate it.
Ducky -- many good insights. You sure hit it out of the park here: the pols are trying as hard as they can to propagandize a sellout.
As we know, this is not a socialist government. The drug manufacturers aren’t going to be nationalized. So, in order to contain escalating costs, a give-and-take accommodation with the drug industry must be reached, even at the risk of seeing it harshly slammed as a sellout.
Folks have caught on. And the pols don’t like that when they’re trying to hoodwink ya. You can tell by the squealing. An old timer I knew used to say “when you go into the barn of a dark night with a lantern the rats run for cover. But the birds start to sing.”
The ordinary folks have been caught up in this power struggle. Dick Armey and his allies in this partisan fight have mobilized their army. Folks will be radicalized and sign up when they are told that their freedom is under attack and socialism is at the gates. The fight to bring down health care costs should be everyone’s fight, but it has degenerated into a bitter right-left battle royal. If it turns out no bill gets passed, the right will hype that as weakness of the president. If some bill gets passed over the objection of Republicans, the right will hype whatever it is as the treachery of Democrats. Either way, rightwing politicians will claim victory.
Almost fifty years ago, in 1961, Ronald Reagan warned in apocalyptic tones of “socialized medicine” that would wipe out the freedom of every American. His followers have held onto that hysterical fear ever since. It’s an old Chinese saying that, to make your way in a fog, follow the tracks of the oxcart in front of you.
They’re singin’ and the pols can’t stand the music.
Drownin’ out the sparrows is singin’ to the vehement vultures on the fringes.
How would it have looked if the British Health Care System had let Hawkings die as they've let so many others? Does anybody REALLY think they'd put Hawkings on a "8 months for a hip replacement" list if he needed one?
Does Hawking use his hip in his wheelchair?
The facts, Z, are that Hawking contracted ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in his twenties, before getting his PhD----i.e, at a time when he had not yet gained world renown as a theoretical physicist. He acknowledges that the care he received from the National Health Service, when he was no one out of the ordinary, saved his life. In fact, public health care has saved the lives of millions of people. While some, as in the example of Hawking, have subsequently proved valuable to the advancement of civilization, many are nonetheless precious to family and friends. Rightwingers advocating the so-called culture of life will no doubt be gladdened by such news.
As for Beamish's line about shoving socialized health care up your bum? I'm with him.
With the exception of his claim to accept only what can be supported by empirical data, you approve whatever beamish asserts, I know. But that is not the question, Z. I asked. In effect, if you would endorse beamish’s lack of civil discourse. You indicate that you endorse half of the language I quoted. Yet you cannot bring yourself to repeat his choice of word, and instead you substitute a British equivalent that is more polite, thereby signaling your ambivalence. As you love to say: How laughable!
I know most ofus bloggers do feel that something needs to be fixed, though the media acts as if the Democrats are the ones with HEARTS (as if this system will show heart?) and the Republicans simply don't give a damn about the sick. Typical media.
Democrats have led the fight for universal coverage and Republicans have opposed it, blaming the media for reporting their opposition.
Let's fix torte reform FIRST. Let's fix Medicare FIRST...take care of AMERICANS first. STOP the freebies to illegals so maybe they'll get the hint and go back home instead of mooching on us. They've CLOSED hospitals around here because the illegals took such advantage but thinking conservatives are supposed to not care about that and just keep digging a larger hole?
While we take care of those things that you demand be done FIRST, should we put on hold the suffering of those not presently covered by insurance?
Of course, meaningful tort reform is necessary to control costs. But those who suffer from hospitable borne infections and other careless medical mistakes should not be put on the chopping block. Is closing hospitals the only way to deny treatment to undocumented immigrants and address overloading the health care services? Perhaps they could put up signs everywhere saying, “Mexicans not treated.” I suspect that rightwingers do care, but for many of them cost in taxes is the bottom line.
HOw laughable.
How silly.
Good luck arguing with Deborah and Beamish, psi bond. It's good to see the interaction and their exquisite revelation of how the leftwinger mind works.
The former believes leftwingers are fascists and her way of arguing is to willfully misrepresent what I write. The latter thinks they are imbeciles and argues by declinig to address contravening facts and asserting preposterous propositions. I’m not surprised that that sort of chicanery is appealing and revealing for you, Z, but it is not serious political discourse.
[Theodore] had Roosevelt lauded his “strenuous life” doctrine with sociobiology [actually, Social Darwinism], the misguided belief that Darwin’s evolutionary principles could best be expressed by humans through imperial expansionism, military hyperpreparedness, free-enterprise economics, and eugenics.
--Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 2009, p.349.
The pseudoscientific principles of eugenics at the turn of the twentieth century well suited Teddy Roosevelt’s non-egalitarian concept of the “real American”. Except for the love of hunting wild animals and the fondness for assault rifles and handguns, little remains of Roosevelt’s ideal conservative man forging the strenuous life.
You made an irresponsible, preposterous allegation, beamish, against liberals in America (the vast majority of leftists in America are liberals), yet you decline to back it up or even acknowledge making it when called on it. That is irresponsible, preposterous behavior, beamish.
PsiBond,
Would that be the Teddy Roosevelt that was the first President to have dinner with a black man in the White House (Booker T. Washington) or the Teddy Roosevelt that the Democrats in 1904 ran against him with posters depicting their candidate Alton Parker with a white couple and Teddy Roosevelt standing with a black groom and a white bride with the caption "the choice is yours!" (stirring left-wing eugenicist fears of miscgenation)
Let me know when you decide to nail down if Teddy Roosevelt is left or right wing.
Would that be the Teddy Roosevelt that was the first President to have dinner with a black man in the White House (Booker T. Washington) [in 1906, TR ordered the summary discharge for dubious reasons of all 167 members of the all-black first battalion of the 25th Infantry Regiment; some of those discharged were Medal of Honor winners; many in the black community were angered, but Booker T. remained loyal to TR and the Republican Party] or the Teddy Roosevelt that the Democrats in 1904 ran against him with posters depicting their candidate Alton Parker with a white couple and Teddy Roosevelt standing with a black groom and a white bride with the caption "the choice is yours!" (stirring left-wing eugenicist fears of miscgenation)
Alton B. Parker is identified as “a conservative Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals” and almost all of his support came from conservative Southern Democrats. Much of TR’s support came from big business, another conservative constituency, and his running mate was a conservative. Neither presidential candidate took to the stump. Parker’s supporters stirring up fears of miscegenation would be conservatives who wanted to conserve the South’s old order. Ironically, TR, with his expressed fears of “race suicide” was an ally. He saw eugenics as a (pseudo-)scientific means of support for racial conservation, a reactionary rightwing agenda.
Let me know when you decide to nail down if Teddy Roosevelt is left or right wing.
Each man has in himself contradictions, but his ideology is consistent with his core principles (this may be Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem for human psychology). TR was opposed to putting “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency and tried to get it removed when president. But, while liberals see the motto as an egregious intrusion on freedom of thought (thereby upholding a universal principle), TR saw it as being sacrilegious and antithetical to the original intent of the Founding Fathers (thereby supporting national tradition and religious animus against usury).
TR entered politics, at age 23, when his local Republican Club nominated him to a State Assembly seat, which he won.
Before the First World War, conservative parties were little more than politicized gentlemen’s clubs, controlled by the wealthy few.
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