Progressives Corrupt History, Impugn Founding Fathers

Contrary to what progressives are saying, the individual mandate is unprecedented

Obama's goose-stepping minions are in a panic, grasping for anything to steady their reality-induced vertigo.  Liberal blogger Green Eagle linked to an article claiming a 1798 act passed by congress and signed by President John Adams set a legal and constitutional precedent for the individual mandate.  Yes, they are so desperate that they are trying to prove that the founding fathers invented socialized medicine.  

I did a little googling and found a veritable infestation of such articles.  All of them are laced with snide little jibes about how devastated we " conservative constitution worshipers" will be upon discovering the constitutional treason committed by the founding fathers, who we worship as gods.

I have a little piece of advice for the Left Blogistanis. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do some research before running off with the first piece of propaganda that suits your pinched worldview.  An unflinching examination of the facts reveal that, as usual, these progressive apologists are mostly full of it.

There is no Individual Mandate in the 1798 Law

The articles citing a precedent for an individual mandate are flat-out wrong, claiming the law mandated "privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance." It clearly does not, so the authors premise is destroyed and thus his argument is invalid. 

What the act did was require ship owners to pay a tax to the US Government in order to dock here.  The funds were used to set up a network of merchant marine hospitals to care for sailors who worked in a very dangerous profession.

Rick Ungar wrote an excellent article in Forbes Magazine making a similar claim, stating the law sets a precedent for single-payer, government run health care. Unlike the first author, he makes a very good case, but still not convincing.

A commenter made a salient counter-argument that is echoed in other rebuttals:

The opposition is that the Federal government cannot constitutionally force American citizens to purchase services from “PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS”.

The monies collected in regards to the Act in question were not required to be paid to a Private institution; they were required to be paid to agents of the Federal government.

The short legal rejection of this argument can be found at the excellent legal site, The Volokh Conspiracy.

So the Act is totally dissimilar to the Obamacare mandate. In the 1798 Act, the government imposes a tax, collects all the tax revenue, and spends the revenue as it chooses.

The Act certainly did not order seamen to purchase any form of private insurance, nor did it order them to purchase any other type of private good. The Act is a solid precedent for federal involvement in health care, and no precedent at all for a federal mandate to purchase private products.  (David Kopel)

As Kopel points out, this act could be cited as a precedent for taxation to fund a single-payer medical system run by the US government (socialized medicine), but not for the individual mandate.  And that is why, to the hand-wringing liberals' chagrin, the White House did not invoke this argument.

Obamista Liberalism:  Intellectually bankrupt and fundamentally dishonest

Lest we believe the founders were proto-socialists, let's dig a little deeper...

Dig a little deeper and what you will see is that the founders taxed merchant shipping companies that docked here and used the tax to fund hospitals for seamen, who performed a very dangerous job at the time.  They were following an older British precedent that pre-dated the founding of our nation.

It is noteworthy that this was not forcing the sailors to purchase something, but a tax on the shipping companies.

It is also notable that the founders did not impose such a scheme on the whole country. No such program existed for farmers, militias or any other group, which makes this a unique circumstance that is being taken out of context.

A better line of argument from liberals would be to use this as a precedent for government socialized medicine, where citizens pay taxes in and get government-provided health care in return.  But even that would be a stretch given the limited nature and historical circumstances of 1798 act.

So no, the founding fathers did not engage in socialized medicine, and what Obama and the Pelosicrats are doing is historically unprecedented.  

Push Back on the "Give Back"

"Give something back" is a leftist rhetorical trick designed to shame people into pouring even more money into failed state enterprises.

President Obama delivered his official response to the budget crisis: those who have benefited the most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. (HuffPo - Rev Al Sharpton)

What an absurd statement.  But liberalism has become an eternal fount of absurd pronouncements.

Here is the statement straight from the emperor's mouth:

"It's a basic reflection of our belief that those who benefited most from our way of life can afford to give back a little bit more."  (President Obama - RCP)

"Give back" presupposes that someone took something.  That is why it is an absurd statement.  So until demagogues like Obama can give us details on just what exactly "the rich" took from us, (and which ones?  Name names!), I'll continue to ignore them. 

Speaking of "Taking..." and "Giving Back..."

What have all those recipients of government-subsidized student loans and government grants given back?  How are welfare recipients, government housing residents and food stamp users paying us back?

At the next DC-NY taxpayer-funded orgy, Obama should ask GE CEO Jeffrey HeMelts when GE will "give back" all the damned tax money they have scammed us out of.  When will Obama-owned GM give back the $50 billion he took from us and gave them in a fit of crony crapitalism that would make FDR blush?

And didn't effete millionaire jet setters Michelle and Barack Obama use government-subsidized student loans and grants to attend Ivy League schools?  And don't those schools receive millions each year in government funds?  Have the Obama's given it back?

If liberals really want to go down this road of "give something back," we conservatives and libertarians should take them all the way.

Give Something Back?  Statists Have it Backwards

Government should give us back...

Economic liberty; incandescent bulbs; drilling permits; freedom to travel through airports without being groped, raped, scanned, fondled and strip searched;  Sane immigration policy...

What would you like to see government give back? 

* -  For a more in-depth treatment, see Kook's excellent post, "C'Mon Time to Give Something Back"

Liberals Can’t Handle the Truth

Liberals have a reality problem. They just can’t face it.

According to liberals, we're not broke, unions and government create jobs, the schools are just fine and we need to keep giving them more money, big government is great and we need more of it...  It's a catalog of lunacy.  No wonder moderates and independents last November ran screaming from the nuthouse known as the democratic party.

And the dems just don't get it.  They lost Keith Olberman's Countdown, but they now eagerly tune in each night for red-faced ranter Ed Schultz's Nightly Meltdown.

The latest spycam video showed progressive flagship NPR’s true colors, which all already knew anyway. It is a white, east coast, metrosexual effete, snobbish organization. They are anti-Jewish and anti-black. Just ask Juan Williams about the condescending treatment he received from them.

It's not about women, minorities and the oppressed--It's about advancing the statist agenda

Liberals are for women, just not conservative or religious ones like Sarah Palin, or threatened ones like Molly Norris, who is in hiding because 7th century islamists threatened to cut her head off over cartoons. They are for women standing up to powerful oppressors, unless those women live in the Muslim world. Then its ok that they’re oppressed. Liberals stand against sexual harassment and powerful men using their position to gain sexual favors, unless the man is a democrat president, then it’s ok.

Liberals are for blacks and gays, unless they are conservative or decide they want to attend a tea party rally.

You see, it’s not about blacks, or gays or women, it’s about advancing a statist progressive agenda. Minorities, the oppressed and the downtrodden are just extras, props cynically used to advance the agenda.

We want a do over!

Wisconsin is the latest theater of the absurd, where hysterical liberals display their inability to accept reality. The people voted, democrats lost, so they cried and scampered off to Illinois like the cowering cowards they are. Like petulant children refusing to take a bath, they stamped their feet and stuck out their tongues at the electorate.

Now, they are gearing up recall elections, crying “We want a do over!” They cannot accept reality, so they now seek to change it. Good luck with that, although their approach of siding with money-gobbling, capitol-wrecking unions, and standing against the taxpaying voter is a novel approach. More of that reality problem I guess...

FOX - Wisconsin

A Progressive Doomsday Device

Progressives are already snickering in giddy anticipation of the voter backlash against GOP budget cuts…

Read along with me what this little handmaiden of big government has to say...

The politics become volatile and incendiary when the rubber of deficit reduction meets the road of pain and suffering imposed on individual voters. The polls today are irrelevant. Public opinion will shift in dramatic and unpredictable ways once the happy drunk of deficit-reduction promises brings the hangover headache of deciding which voters will suffer what pain. (Brent Budowsky – The Hill)

Notice how the statist commentator steals the “drunk” analogy from those who apply it to big spenders, and now uses it against those wanting to stop the profligacy? Neat rhetorical trick.

But this is the operative part of the quote: “…deciding which voters will suffer what pain.”

We're All Crack Whores Now
That is the beautiful trap progressives built into their grand scheme. Spread it around, hand the government-issued crack cocaine out to everyone. Middle class parents whose children eat subsidize school lunches. Retirees with hundreds of thousands in retirement nesteggs who are conditioned to the idea of a monthly government check. Government-subsidized train travel. Education grants and cheap student loans…

It’s all bound so tightly, any scalpel wielding politician is bound to draw blood.  We’re all hooked. We’re crack whores who break out in the cold sweats every time we contemplate escaping Uncle Sugar the pimp daddy.

In the cold war movie Dr Strangelove, a rogue Air Force general launches bombers with no way to call them back in the hopes of nuking the Russkies before they can retaliate. His plan is foiled when the Russians declare they have a previously undisclosed “doomsday machine,” that will automatically launch all their nukes, there’s no way to stop it.

Statists have done the same with their progressive programs. Knife-wielders in green eyeshades find themselves lost in a funhouse maze, nowhere to turn, nowhere to cut where someone won’t scream in agony. The progressives have turned the goodie-dispensing federal government into a giant doomsday machine that will blow up in the faces of anyone trying to dismantle it. The big spenders can just sit back and chuckle as the slashers piss off more and more voters.

Defunding the Democratic Party

As the teachers unions abandon our kids and their schools to swarm Madison like a throbbing horde of third-world lunatics, liberal columnist Kevin Drum makes an excellent point.  He complains that Republicans who are dismantling government programs and cutting spending are “defunding the Democratic party.”

A brilliant observation!  Democrats have been buying votes with our tax dollars for the better part of 80 years now.  It’s time to put a stop to it.

MSNBC – Republican Cuts

Grab their Guns and Shut them Up!

Why should it be more of a crime to threaten a politician than it is to threaten an ordinary citizen?

A threat is a threat, and all credible threats should be treated equally under the law regardless of who issues the threat or who is threatened.

"The president is a federal official," Brady told CNN in a telephone interview. "You can't do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge." (The Hill)

You shouldn't be able to do it to anyone, congressman! A threat to my wife or a threat to Harry Reid; it doesn't matter. Both are criminal and should be punished.  This concept is a cornerstone of The Rule of Law. 

David Weigel at Slate explains better than I can why this is a bad idea.

Brady's proposed legislation is half unenforceable and half redundant. Threats against public officials are already illegal. A year ago, a Pennsylvania man was arrested because his interminable YouTube rants veered into threats against Eric Cantor, who's now the House majority leader.

Loughner didn't make any YouTube threats. (Slate)

Such proposed laws are really about controlling speech, but like gun control, the nuts and the criminals the law is directed at won't obey it anyway...

If someone like Jared Loughner wants to develop bizarre ideas about government based on obscure online theories—or based on nothing at all—no amount of civil dialogue will prevent it.  (Slate)

Here's the real agenda.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) suggested the Federal Communications Commission was "not working anymore," adding she would look at ways to better police language on the airwaves.  (The Hill-New Curbs)

Yes. All that criticism of failed, tired statist policies foisted upon us by a power-mad democratic party is getting out of hand. "Irresponsible speech" and free-thinking caused a turnover in the house of representatives and almost upturned the senate. We can't have that!

"What I'd like to see is if we could all get together on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, and really talk about what we can do to cool down the country," Slaughter said.(The Hill-New Curbs)

Liberals want to cool down the criticism, take the heat off of themselves, their horrible agenda, and the multi-trillion dollar failures they have burdened us all with. "Cool down the country" means shut up criticism of liberalism and put off limits all this wild talk about shrinking our bloated, inefficient politburo-style government and the big fat Greek-style debt it has incurred. That's the kind of talk these failed statists in the Democratic party want to squelch.

To equate criticism of government with killing people is repulsive, but that's the stinking sewer liberals now find themselves mired in. They are completely repudiated and their policies discredited, so all they have left is to tell the country to shut up, and enforce their imperial mandate with the force of law.